Close at hand is the brisk business district, just under you lie
The platforms from which the incessant electric expresses
Go rushing from City to faraway Suburbs, and back from the Suburbs again.
[Narration Three]
Here are underground Boulevards bright with Bazaars, here you’ll find
Vast fields for the shop-window gazer to graze in. Arcades
Branch off on each side, endless Galleries lined with glasscases invite
To inspection of carloads of diamondmine loot, of forests of flowers,
Tropic fruits piled in tiers, Pin-up waxwork girls posed in parades
To show off new nylons, new sequins, new rhinestones, new lace-trimmed furcoats.
[Narration One]
But don’t linger too long for a rush-hour approaches and here it’s unwise
To risk getting caught by the tide of the throng that flows through at its height.
Better make your way now to the flights of steps all leading down
To the slow-moving staircases, up to the fast escalators
Descending past columns of spiralling stairs to the level where tubes
Have been bored for the feet to press through from the foot of one flight
[Narration Two]
Of stepping stones, on to the passages in, then the passages out,
To the thoroughfares out of which more escalators are moving, some more
Slowly, the others more quickly, first up and then down, on and on,
On and off, up and up, down down down, go on down, till at last
The wonderful system will crown the true will to success with success
As the peace known at zero-hour’s peak on the heart of the rusher descends.
[Sleeping Citydweller]
Oh! Let me stop, I must sit down!
I’ve been deceived, I am confused!
I must wake from this nightmare soon.
Among these crowds I’ve got quite lost –
Words in the tunnels’ roaring drown!
[Train-Wheels Chorus]
Hurry up and get on Hurry up and get on Hurry up and get on Hurry
I couldn’t care less I couldn’t care less I couldn’t care less I couldn’t
The Main Chance The Main Chance The Main Chance The Main
Get on Care less Get on Care less Get on Care less Get on Care less
Teach a lesson teach a lesson teach a lesson teach a lesson teach a
The Damned are the Damned are the Damned are the Damned are the
The Day of Wrath the Atom Plan the Wrath to Come the Atom
Bomb the Coming Day the Greatest Bang the Biggest Bomb the
Wrath of God the World of Man the Day to Come the Bang the Bomb … (ad inf.)
[Guide Voice]
As you move at a pace that gets constantly faster, your eyes
Are increasingly caught and held fast at each step by one after
Another phrase, slogan and image set up to solicit as much
Of the crowd-individual’s attention as each in his hurry can spare.
[Narration One]
You may look where you like for the public’s fastidious and only permits
Its favourite posters to brighten the walls of such sanctums as these:
Now the principal stations afford a great treat with the constant variety
Of the attractions inviting the traveller’s mind’s eye to rove towards
All sorts of model resorts; at his journey’s end wait to stare down on him
On his arrival more posters depicting the places abroad he must
Hasten to visit as soon as he can to discover:
[Narration Two]
NEW VISTAS NEW THRESHOLDS NEW PLEASURES NEW BEAUTIES NEW BEACHES NEW LIGHT
ON OLD-WORLD INNS NEW WORLDS IN DISGUISE OLD CATHEDRALS SPOTLIGHTED
NEW CRUISES TO BEAUTYSPOTS SEA-COASTS BEST SUITED TO NUDES
[Narration Three]
Look! Here posters plaster the best people’s eye with huge glimpses
Of Scenes from the Very Best Shows of the Year by the Star-Chamber
Critics’ Assembly Selected: The Most Highly Praised, the Best Advertised, then
The most Noted for Highlypaid Acting, the Most Controversial,
[Narration One]
The Crowd’s hardheaded leaders alone have the leisure to cast a glance over them
As they press past down the passage from exit to box-office queue but they turn
To present to the next passerby their opinion for what it is worth and
He’ll then in his turn send it on to be sent on till common consent
Has agreed that it’s fit to be fully divulged to the public at large.
[Narration Two]
Now here you must follow the people in front of you down some more stairs
Where as you descend you will find on each side are arranged on the walls
More advertisements eager to snatch at your glance as you pass:
If you miss one or two it won’t matter, you’ll find them again further on.
[Publicity Chorus]
STRAPLESS BREASTAPPEAL BRA MAKES YOU HARDER TO GET
NEW LYNX LIMOUSINE WITH LOW FAMILY EYELINE
DON’T LET THEM DESCRIBE YOU AS DIRTY! GET ‘WET’
HOW’S YOUR COLON LOOK? TREAT IT TO LIQUORICE SOAP
WATCH APPROACH OF PHENOMENAL NEW STAR ON SKYLINE
VAN WORMWOOD EXCLUSIVELY FEATURED IN ‘DOPE’
‘THIS SOULTWISTER BLISTERS THE PAINT OFF THE SET!’
DRINK MORE DRINK! WEAR MORE CLOTHES! DON’T LOSE HOPE! DON’T FORGET!
WEAR MORE SMILES PLEASE! LAUGH LOUDER! LOOK AFTER YOURSELF!
USE CHARM AND DISCRETION! BE TOUGH! DON’T GET LAID ON THE SHELF!
[Train-Wheels Chorus]
I couldn’t care less I couldn’t care less I couldn’t care less I couldn’t
A chance you can’t afford to lose a chance you can’t afford to lose a
Smooth as glass and tough as hell as smooth as glass and tough as hell
The damned are the damned are the damned are the damned are the
The World to come the Atom Plan the World of Man the Atom Bomb the
Coming Day the Biggest Bang the Wrath of God the Atom Age the Day of Wrath … (ad inf.)
[Narration One]
The Sleeper came here on a Quest, to find that he is lost,
Deepsunk in the confusions of a City underground,
And now looks round him, lonely and bewildered, in the midst
Of anonymous masked multitudes, surrounded by the sounds
Of Latter Pandemonium, Hell’s ideal up-to-date
Metropolis of Commerce-cum-Cacophomonium,
The Capital of Every Pseudo Super-City State.
[Commentator]
Tonight is Carnival Time in this great underworld city of platforms and staircases and here I am on the spot to give you a ringside description of the scene in the Pluto Plaza, where a vast number of masked revellers are already waiting on the great black ice ballroom floor for the New Season to be officially declared open by – why yes, here he is, it’s a top secret but I think I can let you in on it, it’s a very important V.I.P. indeed, now I can see his flaming whiskers and gaily pointed tail as he goes past on his way to the rostrum. Everyone’s tense with excitement, the ice of the ballroom floor’s going to melt in a moment, I think he’s going to address them, yes, now here it comes, this is the moment everyone’s been waiting for, you’re actually going to hear the Old Man himself speaking.
[V.I.P.]
I have every hope that those of you who hear me speak tonight will be as deeply stirred as I have been to learn that it is to be my special privilege to have the honour of presenting to Charity for auction on your behalf this most artfully designed and purposeful-looking Pair of Silver Ceremonial Scissors, having first severed with them in a single
snip – the mile-long cordon-bleu communication-ribbon which has been arranged so as to run round these entire fully licensed premises.
(He cuts the cordon)
I hereby declare endless Carnival to be left open to the Four Winds of Publicity, Gossip, Idletalk, and Rumour, and have much sly pleasure in handing over all responsibility for the conduct of further proceedings to the Master of Spring Opening Ceremonies, who is already seizing the Microphone to Address you.
(Applause)
[Master of Spring Opening Ceremonies]
Applause comes first! That’s what I like to hear! Just one more burst! Now when
I give the sign, let there be music. Bandsmen may burst their drums but have no fear,
Dear Dressdesignstars and neat Grooms. Dance, dance until you faint.
Abandon everything. No one would think that your death might be near.
Have no anxiety at all. You’d look a million dollars at your worst.
Never let laughter falter lest its note sound forced, nor let your feet
Trip the less lightly over foolish fear; no one looks quaint
By being opulently over-lightly clad. Dance in the street!
Let the rare joy of true extravagance in dress carry you on
From whirl to whirl, and through hall after hall
Of topflight fashion, as from square to square dance floor!
May I remind you that there are none so mad
Among these streetwalkers that the red carpets spread
For your fleet crystal-slippered toes alone to tread
Will not inspire in them a rapt respect while you are revelling; not one
Who following your least step close as facsimile permit
Will not wish that she might be at once flash-photo’d dead
Were she but gowned with the unerring taste shown in your very shroud!
So fling yourselves headlong into our Carnival, and let your joy in it
Be long as night, and very, very loud!
[Chorus of Masks] (confusedly)
Out of this world. Marvellous! Of course, this is sheer Heaven!
Out out of this World World. Exquisite.
Divine! Out of this World. Heaven!
Out of this World. Darling! Such heaven!
I simply worship him. Ah, what Heaven! Worship her worship it
Simply Divine! I do adore to dance!
Divine! Out of this World! Sheer heaven, my dear, but too divine!
This world is heaven! Divine! I adore it, Darling!
You do look heavenly! Adorable! I think your make-up’s too divine!
[Narration One]
Although the style’s incongruous, one may quote here, I hope,
These apposite Augustan lines from Alexander Pope:
‘Hell rises, Heaven descends, and dance on earth:
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball;
Till one wide conflagration swallows all.’
[Voice of a Mask]
Smoothburnt by artificial sunrays, cold with sweat
Under our swathed robes’ sheaths since zero lies within,
Perplexed apparently by our perdition, inwardly
Rehearsing rigmaroles of self-defensive calumny, we go
The tortuous easy way towards uncertainty out of
The pit of ages past. Ours is harsh music. Masks
Like snailshells are become, the glossy whorled
Concealment we excrete to screen our softness from ourselves.
Should silence fall, we’d shake like withered leaves and surely tell
How easy paralytic souls a prey to terror fall
Stonedeafened by midwinter’s blasts at last! So endless noise
We need to stuff our burning ears with, huge uproars
Must keep on breaking out lest we should judge
Unwillingly how far and near are all one to the void
Whose dungeon swallows up the instant after our least sound.
When buffeted by pangs of dread of failure, we at once
Wrap blankets of cacophony about us, plucking strings
Of strident resonance to death with frantic fingers, while alas,
The only ground-note to all songs is like the throbbing sob
Of childhood by our cold sophistication throttled, choked
Back in our lying throats, to underlie, pent in our breasts,
Each cry during the long spell of our carnival expelled
To swell the roar that rises with each climax repostponed.
(The Music, in which the Dies Irae has been distinguishable, played simultaneously with Boys and Girls Come out to Play, here reaches the summit of its crescendo with a high, piercing trumpet note.)
[Narration One]
Sleepers, Awake! Awake from Sleep! Back from the world of Shades!
The trumpet sounds, the curtain falls, the fabric strange dissolves
And the familiar scene shows through: the darkened stage
Which is the sleeper’s bedroom; the familiar properties
Of daily use arranged around the bed. The ordinary street
Outside the window and its streetlamps in the ordinary night.
You awaken from the Pandemonium of your dream, the midnight carnival,
And find yourself in the Dark City of the present day again.
[Narration Two]
We think at night. We break the spell of every-day if thought can wake
From the deep twilight sleep of thinking darkness light.
[Narration Three]
It has been said that in the Marketplace, man sleeps his deepest sleep.
[Narration Two]
Purely material reality, if reality it were, would be lived in by no more
Than animated corpses, dead-alive, with ghosts of thoughts
Haunting their brainpans’ coils of cells in an irrational way,
However rational their words and meanings were.
[Narration One]
Tonight you in the dark attentive to the Night
Thoughts we have here assembled, may be more
Than merely thinking that you wake. When the new day
Emerges from the everlasting East perhaps you may.
3 ENCOUNTER WITH SILENCE
[Narration One]
Night Thoughts. Night Music. Now from buried labyrinths and caves of the town-dweller’s anxious dream, from claustrophobic corridors of nocturnal soliloquy, we move away until we can emerge into the open air in a secluded countryside.
[Narration Two]
There we shall find again the calm night world of Nature.
[Narration One]
Nature, the Earth, Unconsciousness and Death. We are drawn down and back towards them in the Night.
[Narration Three]
Nocturnal Music. Meditations in dark gardens. Gradually forming thoughts pursued in gardens by such solitary strollers as may now find themselves outdoors, taking a turn or two before retiring, taking a breath or two of fresher air.
[Narration One]
Walking there without a predetermined object; in the starlight; at a slow pace, uncertainly. Standing still from time to time as though to listen, yet not listening to any clearly determined sound.
[Narration Two]
The Night music has drifted off into remote serenity, leaving the hearer standing still to listen to the stillness of the garden, waiting to hear what may be born out of the stillness.
[Narration Three]
He stands still and seems to listen to some unknown distant thing; something that might be coming from … from where? What echo from beyond what last horizon?
[Narration One]
There is nothing to be heard. The garden is quite still. There is only silence in the darkness.
[Narration Two]
There is seldom experienced anywhere on the inhabited earth, for more than a moment or two at a time, such a thing as silence. For it is something we imagine only, Silence, an
idea we have of what a complete absence of sound would be like. Real Silence is the message spoken to us that we fear most of all to hear. What we usually call silence is most often no more really than a confused medley of diminutive sounds to which it would be too tiring to pay conscious attention.
[Narration Three]
Everywhere about us, day and night, goes on the eddying stream of murmur: little drifting sighs and rumblings, whispers, coughing, whistles, moans. Goes on rising from the earth, the home of life, birthplace of restlessness, where all the rhythms meet, and cross, and intertwine uninterruptedly.
Chorus 1: A window rattling in the wind
Chorus 2: That everlasting rear-exhausting, gear-exhausted car
Chorus 3: Bark of a mongrel
Chorus 1: Tap of an old benighted blind-man’s cane
Chorus 2: Another mongrel’s barking
Chorus 1: An infinitesimal insect’s lovesong, scarcely a second long
Chorus 2: That wretched child …
Chorus 3: An ancient iron engine shunts and shunts
Chorus 1: O the wind and the rain in the rain and the wind in the rain in the wind
Chorus 2: O love return, return, O darling come …
Chorus 3: A mammoth feather’s smothered fluttering
Chorus 1: And screams like hell and shunts and shunts and shunts
Chorus 2: Bark of another mongrel
Chorus 3: The same everlasting car
Chorus 1: Old oak’s slow taut-slack creak, clock’s low quick-slow-quick tick
Chorus 2: Sand trickling underneath the door, dust blown across the floor
Chorus 3: The sleeper’s snore soon swells the stream which never dies away
But flows on till with dawn it joins the streaming sounds of day.
[Narration One]
Night music of mysterious hazard. Dream-fugues: variations on fortuitous themes; intricate tracery unwinding like designs drawn in a trance across the taut sky of the universal Ear.
[Narration Two]
Decrepid gust-blown tinkling of a crumbling pagoda’s bells …
[Narration Three]
Intensely complex tight-screwedup tattoo of tiny drums …
[Narration One]
The velvet-padded hammering of life-blood’s changing pulse.
[Narration Three]
The pulse of changing life is the deep underlying constant. And the Unchanging also is a pulse, flowing through all that lives, a single pulse.
[Narration Two]
The changes and the pauses and occasional recurrence of abrupt irregularity make sound-patterns we overhear but never really hear. Our hearing intercepts no more than one bar at a time. These patterns are upon a scale not measurable in hours. Attention wanders; thinking intervenes.