Foreign land

Author: [American] Gilman, translated by Lin Shuqin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-03-01
Features: "Semi-tropical. It looks like a first-class climate. A little altitude can change the temperature, it's really amazing." Taylor was studying the growth of the forest. "A little altitude! You call this a little?" I asked. Our instruments measured clearly, but we didn't notice it might be a gentle slope rising from the coast. "I call this a piece of super-lucky land," Taylor continued. "Now let's look at these people—look enough at the scenery." So, we lowered our flight altitude and crisscrossed, analyzing the country along the way, examining it carefully. We saw—I don't remember how many we wrote down at the time, or what knowledge was added later—but even on that exciting day, we still saw many things—a piece of land perfectly cultivated, even the forest looked like it was taken care of; a piece of land like a huge park, but more like a huge garden. "I didn't see any cattle herds," I suggested, but Taylor remained silent. We were approaching a village. I admit we didn't pay much attention to the well-paved, clean roads, attractive buildings, or the neat, uniform beauty of the small town. We took out our binoculars. Even with Taylor setting the turn and glide, he still held the binoculars tightly to his eyes. They heard our buzzing rotation and ran out of the house—from fields all around, figures with light footsteps came, in groups. We stared and almost didn't hold the control stick, sliding away. After climbing up for a long time, we didn't dare to speak. "Wow!" After a while, Taylor finally spoke. "There are only women—and children!" Jeff was very excited. "But they look—ah! This is a country that has evolved!" I protested. "There must be men." "Of course, there are men," Taylor said. "Let's go find them." Jeff suggested we shouldn't explore the country further before leaving the machine, but Taylor refused. "The place we came from has a good landing spot," he insisted, and it was an excellent spot—a wide, flat rock overlooking the lake, quite far from the interior of the country. "They won't notice this in their haste," he still insisted. We struggled extremely hard to land safely. "Let's go! Guys—there are some beautiful ones in that pile." Of course, we were foolish. Looking back, it was easy to see that we should have studied the country more thoroughly beforehand, left a fast plane, and relied only on our feet. But we were just three young people, talking about this country for over a year, hardly believing such a place existed, and now—we were right there. The place looked safe enough and civilized. The faces looking up, though some were shocked, were exceptionally beautiful—we didn't comment on that either. "Let's go!" Taylor shouted, rushing forward. "Hooray! Let's go! On our way to foreign lands!"
III. Strange Captivity
As if waking slowly from a deep, death-like sleep, I felt like a healthy child, full of energy. As if rising from the deep, warm ocean, getting closer and closer to the brilliant light and surging air, or as if regaining consciousness after a concussion. Once, I fell from a horse in a remote mountain area. This had just happened recently, and I could still clearly remember the psychological experience of regaining consciousness, as if lifting the layers of a dream. When I began to faintly hear the voices around me and see the vast mountains with glistening snow peaks, I thought everything would pass quickly, but soon realized I was at home. This experience of waking up was exactly like that: the dizzying images, memories of home, steamships, small boats, airplanes, forests—all receded like a tide, one after another, until my eyes widened and my mind cleared, understanding what had happened.
An extraordinary feeling was absolute comfort in the body. I lay on a perfect bed, wide and long, comfortable and pleasant, soft and firm, with excellent sheets and pillowcases, warm blankets, and a beautiful duvet. The sheets were pulled up about fifteen inches, even when I stretched my feet at the foot of the bed, the sheets were still warm enough to cover them. I felt as light and clean as white feathers. It took some time to realize the position of my limbs and vividly experience the sensation of life spreading from the central nervous system to the extremities. The room was large, tall and spacious, with many high windows, and curtains drawn to filter the gentle, greenish air. It was a beautiful room, with proportions, colors, and simplicity just right. Outside the garden, flowers were in full bloom, with fragrant scents drifting in the breeze. I lay quietly, quite happy and alert, yet not fully understanding the movements around me until I heard Taylor speak. "Wow!" It was his words. I turned my head. The room had three beds and was still spacious. Taylor sat up, looking around, as usual, alert. His voice, though not loud, also awoke Jeff. We all sat up. Taylor jumped off the bed and stood up, stretching his body forcefully. He wore a long robe, a seamless garment, undoubtedly very comfortable—we all wore the same. Shoes were placed beside each bed, also very comfortable and aesthetically pleasing, though completely different from ours. We looked for our clothes—but they weren't there, and the various items in our pockets were also gone. A door was half-open, leading to a charming bathroom, generously furnished with towels, soap, mirrors, and other convenient, comfortable items, as well as our own toothbrushes, combs, notebooks, and watches—thank goodness—though without clothes. Then, we searched the large room again and found a large, well-ventilated closet filled with clothes, but none of them were ours.
"Strategic Committee!" Taylor said. "Back to bed—anyway, these beds aren't bad. Well, friends who value science, let's calmly and calmly consider our situation." He meant me, but Jeff seemed quite moved. "They didn't harm us at all, A!" he said. "They could have killed us—or—what—I've never felt better in my life." "This shows they are all women," I suggested. "And highly civilized. You know, the last time there was a fight, you hit someone—I heard her scream—I twisted and fought." Taylor smiled at us. "Do you understand what these ladies did to us?" he asked cheerfully. "They took everything we had, all our clothes—not a single stitch left. We were stripped bare, bathed, and put to bed like countless one-year-old babies—all done by these highly civilized women." Jeff really flushed; he had a poetic imagination. Taylor also had enough imagination, but of a different kind. So did I, and in a different way. I always praised myself for having scientific imagination, and I happened to think this was a kind of noble one. I believed everyone was like that, and once some facts were confirmed, they had the right to be a little arrogant—of course, secretly.
"Guys, fighting is useless," I said. "We are their fish in a barrel, and clearly they are also completely harmless. Like any fallen hero, what remains is for us to come up with an escape plan! Meanwhile, we have no choice but to wear these clothes." The clothes were simple to the extreme, yet absolutely comfortable to wear. Of course, we all felt like extras in a play. Worn on the bottom, long robes that reached the knees and shoulders, light and soft, like some people's nightgowns. Some half-length socks that reached below the knees, with elastic bands at the top to hold the socks in place. Above that was a thicker overall, and there were many of them in the closet, of different thicknesses, with more durable fabrics, clearly suitable for the needs at hand. There were also knee-length vests and some robes. No need to say, we took the vests. After our bath, we put on the clothes cheerfully. I have always been proud of my country. Everyone was. Compared to other countries and races I knew, the United States of America seemed to me, modestly speaking, to be outstandingly excellent. But like a clear-eyed, intelligent, honest child often asks innocent questions that hurt someone's pride, these women were the same—without malice or mockery, constantly asking the questions we desperately avoided. Now that we had become quite proficient in their language and had read a lot about their history, and had given them an outline of our history, they could delve deeper into the questions. So, when Jeff admitted that "women earning wages" made up the population, they immediately asked about the total population and the proportion of adult women. The result was that adult women working outside were at most about twenty million.
"So, at least one-third of the women are—what do you call them—women earning wages? And they are all poor. What is poverty?" "As for poverty, our country is one of the best in the world," Taylor told them. "I can guarantee we don't have the plight of beggars and vagrants that old countries do. European visitors say we don't know what real poverty is." "We don't either," Zava replied. "Please tell us about it!" Taylor said I was a sociologist and pushed the question to me. I explained the laws of nature, that survival requires struggle, and in the process, the fittest survive while the unfit are eliminated. I continued to say that in our economic struggle, the fittest always have many opportunities to climb to the top, which is indeed the case, and there are many people, especially in our country, when there is severe economic pressure, the lowest class is hit the hardest. In the impoverished population, women are forced to join the labor market out of necessity. They listened carefully, as usual, taking notes.
"So, about one-third of the people belong to the impoverished class," Mauda said seriously. "Two-thirds are those—how did you describe them just now—that are so beautiful? 'Loved, adored, glorified, staying at home to take care of children.' I guess the disadvantaged third don't have children, do they?" Jeff—becoming just as bad as them—answered solemnly that the opposite was true; the poorer they were, the more children they had. He explained that this was also a law of nature: "The more children are born, the less individual independence."
"These 'natural laws'," Zava asked softly. "Are they your only laws?" "Not at all!" Taylor protested. "Our legal system can be traced back thousands or even tens of thousands of years—undoubtedly just like yours." He ended politely.