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肩書を与える: The Man in Asbestos - An Allegory of the 未来
Author: Stephen Leacock
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The Man in Asbestos:
An Allegory of the 未来

by

Stephen Leacock

To begin with let me 収容する／認める that I did it on 目的. Perhaps it was partly from jealousy.

It seemed 不公平な that other writers should be able at will to 減少（する） into a sleep of four or five hundred years, and to 急落（する），激減（する） 長，率いる first into a distant 未来 and be a 証言，証人／目撃する of its marvels.

I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do that too.

I always had been, I still am, a 熱烈な student of social problems. The world of to-day with its roaring 機械／機構, the unceasing toil of its working classes, its 争い, its poverty, its war, its cruelty, appals me as I look at it. I love to think of the time that must come some day when man will have 征服する／打ち勝つd nature, and the toil-worn human race enter upon an 時代 of peace.

I loved to think of it, and I longed to see it.

So I 始める，決める about the thing deliberately.

What I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to do was to 落ちる asleep after the customary fashion, for two or three hundred years at least, and wake and find myself in the marvel world of the 未来.

I made my 準備s for the sleep.

I bought all the comic papers that I could find, even the illustrated ones. I carried them up to my room in my hotel: with them I brought up a pork pie and dozens and dozens of doughnuts. I ate the pie and the doughnuts, then sat 支援する in the bed and read the comic papers one after the other. Finally, as I felt the awful lethargy stealing upon me, I reached out my 手渡す for the London 週刊誌 Times, and held up the 編集（者）の page before my 注目する，もくろむ.

It was, in a way, （疑いを）晴らす, straight 自殺, but I did it.

I could feel my senses leaving me. In the room across the hall there was a man singing. His 発言する／表明する, that had been loud, （機の）カム fainter and fainter through the transom. I fell into a sleep, the 深い immeasurable sleep in which the very 存在 of the outer world was hushed. Dimly I could feel the days go past, then the years, and then the long passage of the centuries.

Then, not as it were 徐々に, but やめる suddenly, I woke up, sat up, and looked about me.

Where was I?

井戸／弁護士席 might I ask myself.

I 設立する myself lying, or rather sitting up, on a 幅の広い couch. I was in a 広大な／多数の／重要な room, 薄暗い, 暗い／優うつな, and dilapidated in its general 外見, and 明らかに, from its glass 事例／患者s and the stuffed 人物／姿／数字s that they 含む／封じ込めるd, some 肉親，親類d of museum.

Beside me sat a man. His 直面する was hairless, but neither old nor young. He wore 着せる／賦与するs that looked like the grey ashes of paper that had 燃やすd and kept its 形態／調整. He was looking at me 静かに, but with no particular surprise or 利益／興味.

"Quick," I said, eager to begin; "where am I? Who are you? What year is this; is it the year 3000, or what is it?"

He drew in his breath with a look of annoyance on his 直面する.

"What a queer, excited way you have of speaking," he said.

"Tell me," I said again, "is this the year 3000?"

"I think I know what you mean," he said; "but really I 港／避難所't the faintest idea. I should think it must be at least that, within a hundred years or so; but nobody has kept 跡をつける of them for so long, it's hard to say."

"Don't you keep 跡をつける of them any more?" I gasped.

"We used to," said the man. "I myself can remember that a century or two ago there were still a number of people who used to try to keep 跡をつける of the year, but it died out along with so many other faddish things of that 肉親，親類d. Why," he continued, showing for the first time a sort of 活気／アニメーション in his talk, "what was the use of it? You see, after we 除去するd death--"

"除去するd death!" I cried, sitting upright. "Good God!"

"What was that 表現 you used?" queried the man.

"Good God!" I repeated.

"Ah," he said, "never heard it before. But I was 説 that after we had 除去するd Death, and Food, and Change, we had 事実上 got rid of Events, and--"

"Stop!" I said, my brain reeling. "Tell me one thing at a time."

"Humph!" he ejaculated. "I see, you must have been asleep a long time. Go on then and ask questions. Only, if you don't mind, just as few as possible, and please don't get 利益／興味d or excited."

Oddly enough the first question that sprang to my lips was--

"What are those 着せる／賦与するs made of?"

"Asbestos," answered the man. "They last hundreds of years. We have one 控訴 each, and there are billions of them piled up, if anybody wants a new one."

"Thank you," I answered. "Now tell me where I am?"

"You are in a museum. The 人物／姿／数字s in the 事例／患者s are 見本／標本s like yourself. But here," he said, "if you want really to find out about what is evidently a new 時代 to you, get off your 壇・綱領・公約 and come out on Broadway and sit on a （法廷の）裁判."

I got 負かす／撃墜する.

As we passed through the 薄暗い and dust-covered buildings I looked curiously at the 人物／姿／数字s in the 事例／患者s.

"By Jove!" I said looking at one 人物／姿／数字 in blue 着せる／賦与するs with a belt and baton, "that's a policeman!"

"Really," said my new 知識, "is that what a policeman was? I've often wondered. What used they to be used for?"

"Used for?" I repeated in perplexity. "Why, they stood at the corner of the street."

"Ah, yes, I see," he said, "so as to shoot at the people. You must excuse my ignorance," he continued, "as to some of your social customs in the past. When I took my education I was operated upon for social history, but the stuff they used was very inferior."

I didn't in the least understand what the man meant, but had no time to question him, for at that moment we （機の）カム out upon the street, and I stood riveted in astonishment.

Broadway! Was it possible? The change was 絶対 appalling! In place of the roaring thoroughfare that I had known, this silent, moss-grown desolation! 広大な／多数の／重要な buildings fallen into 廃虚 through the sheer 強調する／ストレス of centuries of 勝利，勝つd and 天候, the 味方するs of them coated over with a growth of fungus and moss! The place was soundless. Not a 乗り物 moved. There were no wires 総計費--no sound of life or movement except, here and there, there passed slowly to and fro human 人物／姿／数字s dressed in the same asbestos 着せる／賦与するs as my 知識, with the same hairless 直面するs, and the same look of infinite age upon them.

Good heavens; And was this the 時代 of the Conquest that I had hoped to see! I had always taken for 認めるd, I do not know why, that humanity was 運命にあるd to move 今後. This picture of what seemed desolation on the 廃虚s of our civilization （判決などを）下すd me almost speechless.

There were little （法廷の）裁判s placed here and there on the street. We sat 負かす／撃墜する.

"改善するd, isn't it," said man in asbestos, "since the days when you remember it?"

He seemed to speak やめる proudly.

I gasped out a question.

"Where are the street cars and the モーターs?"

"Oh, done away with long ago," he said; "how awful they must have been. The noise of them!" and his asbestos 着せる／賦与するs rustled with a shudder.

"But how do you get about?"

"We don't," he answered. "Why should we? It's just the same 存在 here as 存在 anywhere else." He looked at me with an infinity of dreariness in his 直面する.

A thousand questions 殺到するd into my mind at once. I asked one of the simplest.

"But how do you get 支援する and 今後s to your work?"

"Work!" he said. "There isn't any work. It's finished. The last of it was all done centuries ago."

I looked at him a moment open-mouthed. Then I turned and looked again at the grey desolation of the street with the asbestos 人物／姿／数字s moving here and there.

I tried to pull my senses together. I realized that if I was to unravel this new and undreamed-of 未来, I must go at it systematically and step by step.

"I see," I said after a pause, "that momentous things have happened since my time. I wish you would let me ask you about it all systematically, and would explain it to me bit by bit. First, what do you mean by 説 that there is no work?"

"Why," answered my strange 知識, "it died out of itself. 機械／機構 killed it. If I remember rightly, you had a 確かな 量 of 機械／機構 even in your time. You had done very 井戸／弁護士席 with steam, made a good beginning with electricity, though I think radial energy had hardly as yet been put to use."

I nodded assent.

"But you 設立する it did you no good. The better your machines, the harder you worked. The more things you had the more you 手配中の，お尋ね者. The pace of life grew swifter and swifter. You cried out, but it would not stop. You were all caught in the cogs of your own machine. 非，不，無 of you could see the end."

"That is やめる true," I said. "How do you know it all?"

"Oh," answered the Man in Asbestos, "that part of my education was very 井戸／弁護士席 operated--I see you do not know what I mean. Never mind, I can tell you that later. 井戸／弁護士席, then, there （機の）カム, probably almost two hundred years after your time, the 時代 of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Conquest of Nature, the final victory of Man and 機械／機構."

"They did 征服する／打ち勝つ it?" I asked quickly, with a thrill of the old hope in my veins again.

"征服する／打ち勝つd it," he said, "（警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 it out! Fought it to a 行き詰まり! Things （機の）カム one by one, then faster and faster, in a hundred years it was all done. In fact, just as soon as mankind turned its energy to 減少（する）ing its needs instead of 増加するing its 願望（する）s, the whole thing was 平易な. 化学製品 Food （機の）カム first. Heavens! the 簡単 of it. And in your time thousands of millions of people tilled and grubbed at the 国／地域 from morning till night. I've seen 見本／標本s of them--農業者s, they called them. There's one in the museum. After the 発明 of 化学製品 Food we piled up enough in the emporiums in a year to last for centuries. 農業 went overboard. Eating and all that goes with it 国内の 労働, 家事--all ended. Nowadays one takes a concentrated pill every year or so, that's all. The whole digestive apparatus, as you knew it, was a clumsy thing that had been bloated up like a 始める，決める of bagpipes through the 進化 of its use!"

I could not forbear to interrupt. "Have you and these people," I said, "no stomachs--no apparatus?"

"Of course we have," he answered, "but we use it to some 目的. 地雷 is 大部分は filled with my education--but there! I am 心配するing again. Better let me go on as I was. 化学製品 Food （機の）カム first: that 削減（する） off almost one-third of the work, and then （機の）カム Asbestos 着せる／賦与するs. That was wonderful! In one year humanity made enough 控訴s to last for ever and ever. That, of course, could never have been if it hadn't been connected with the 反乱 of women and the 落ちる of Fashion."

"Have the Fashions gone," I asked, "that insane, extravagant idea of--" I was about to 開始する，打ち上げる into one of my old-time harangues about the sheer vanity of decorative dress, when my 注目する，もくろむ 残り／休憩（する）d on the moving 人物／姿／数字s in asbestos, and I stopped.

"All gone," said the Man in Asbestos. "Then next to that we killed, or 事実上 killed, the changes of 気候. I don't think that in your day you 適切に understood how much of your work was 予定 to the 転換s of what you called the 天候. It meant the need of all 肉親，親類d of special 着せる／賦与するs and houses and 避難所s, a wilderness of work. How dreadful it must have been in your day--勝利，勝つd and 嵐／襲撃するs, 広大な／多数の／重要な wet 集まりs--what did you call them?--clouds--飛行機で行くing through the 空気／公表する, the ocean 十分な of salt, was it not?--投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd and torn by the 勝利，勝つd, snow thrown all over everything, あられ／賞賛する, rain--how awful!"

"いつかs," I said, "it was very beautiful. But how did you alter it?"

"Killed the 天候!" answered the Man in Asbestos. "Simple as anything--turned its 軍隊s loose one against the other, altered the composition of the sea so that the 最高の，を越す became all more or いっそう少なく gelatinous. I really can't explain it, as it is an 操作／手術 that I never took at school, but it made the sky grey, as you see it, and the sea gum-coloured, the 天候 all the same. It 削減（する） out 燃料 and houses and an infinity of work with them!"

He paused a moment. I began to realize something of the course of 進化 that had happened.

"So," I said, "the conquest of nature meant that presently there was no more work to do?"

"正確に／まさに," he said, "nothing left."

"Food enough for all?"

"Too much," he answered.

"Houses and 着せる／賦与するs?"

"All you like," said the Man in Asbestos, waving his 手渡す. "There they are. Go out and take them. Of course, they're 落ちるing 負かす／撃墜する--slowly, very slowly. But they'll last for centuries yet, nobody need bother."

Then I realized, I think for the first time, just what work had meant in the old life, and how much of the texture of life itself had been bound up in the keen 成果／努力 of it.

Presently my 注目する，もくろむs looked 上向き: dangling at the 最高の，を越す of a moss-grown building I saw what seemed to be the remains of telephone wires.

"What became of all that," I said, "the telegraph and the telephone and all the system of communication?"

"Ah," said the Man in Asbestos, "that was what a telephone meant, was it? I knew that it had been 抑えるd centuries ago. Just what was it for?"

"Why," I said with enthusiasm, "by means of the telephone we could talk to anybody, call up anybody, and talk at any distance."

"And anybody could call you up at any time and talk?" said the Man in Asbestos, with something like horror. "How awful! What a dreadful age yours was, to be sure. No, the telephone and all the 残り／休憩（する） of it, all the transportation and intercommunication was 削減（する） out and forbidden. There was no sense in it. You see," he 追加するd, "what you don't realize is that people after your day became 徐々に more and more reasonable. Take the 鉄道／強行採決する, what good was that? It brought into every town a lot of people from every other town. Who 手配中の，お尋ね者 them? Nobody. When work stopped and 商業 ended, and food was needless, and the 天候 killed, it was foolish to move about. So it was all 終結させるd. Anyway," he said, with a quick look of 逮捕 and a change in his 発言する／表明する, "it was dangerous!"

"So!" I said. "Dangerous! You still have danger?"

"Why, yes," he said, "there's always the danger of getting broken."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Why," said the Man in Asbestos, "I suppose it's what you would call 存在 dead. Of course, in one sense there's been no death for centuries past; we 削減（する） that out. 病気 and death were 簡単に a 事柄 of germs. We 設立する them one by one. I think that even in your day you had 設立する one or two of the easier, the bigger ones?"

I nodded.

"Yes, you had 設立する diphtheria and typhoid and, if I am 権利, there were some 優れた, like scarlet fever and smallpox, that you called ultra-microscopic, and which you were still 追跡（する）ing for, and others that you didn't even 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う. 井戸／弁護士席, we 追跡（する）d them 負かす／撃墜する one by one and destroyed them. Strange that it never occurred to any of you that Old Age was only a germ! It turned out to be やめる a simple one, but it was so 分配するd in its 活動／戦闘 that you never even thought of it."

"And you mean to say," I ejaculated in amazement, looking at the Man in Asbestos, "that nowadays you live for ever?"

"I wish," he said, "that you hadn't that peculiar, excitable way of talking; you speak as if everything 事柄d so tremendously. Yes," he continued, "we live for ever, unless, of course, we get broken. That happens いつかs. I mean that we may 落ちる over a high place or bump on something, and snap ourselves. You see, we're just a little brittle still--some 残余, I suppose, of the Old Age germ--and we have to be careful. In fact," he continued, "I don't mind 説 that 事故s of this sort were the most 苦しめるing feature of our civilization till we took steps to 削減（する） out all 事故s. We forbid all street cars, street traffic, aeroplanes, and so on. The 危険s of your time," he said, with a shiver of his asbestos 着せる／賦与するs, "must have been awful."

"They were," I answered, with a new 肉親，親類d of pride in my 世代 that I had never felt before, "but we thought it part of the 義務 of 勇敢に立ち向かう people to--"

"Yes, yes," said the Man in Asbestos impatiently, "please don't get excited. I know what you mean. It was やめる irrational."

We sat silent for a long time. I looked about me at the 崩壊するing buildings, the monotone, unchanging sky, and the dreary, empty street. Here, then, was the fruit of the Conquest, here was the 排除／予選 of work, the end of hunger and of 冷淡な, the 停止 of the hard struggle, the downfall of change and death--nay, the very millennium of happiness. And yet, somehow, there seemed something wrong with it all. I pondered, then I put two or three 早い questions, hardly waiting to 反映する upon the answers.

"Is there any war now?"

"Done with centuries ago. They took to settling international 論争s with a slot machine. After that all foreign 取引 were given up. Why have them? Everybody thinks foreigners awful."

"Are there any newspapers now?"

"Newspapers! What on earth would we want them for? If we should need them at any time there are thousands of old ones piled up. But what is in them, anyway; only things that happen, wars and 事故s and work and death. When these went newspapers went too. Listen," continued the Man in Asbestos, "you seem to have been something of a social 改革者, and yet you don't understand the new life at all. You don't understand how 完全に all our 重荷（を負わせる）s have disappeared. Look at it this way. How used your people to spend all the 早期に part of their lives?"

"Why," I said, "our first fifteen years or so were spent in getting education."

"正確に／まさに," he answered; "now notice how we 改善するd on all that. Education in our day is done by 外科. Strange that in your time nobody realized that education was 簡単に a surgical 操作／手術. You hadn't the sense to see that what you really did was to slowly remodel, curve and convolute the inside of the brain by a long and painful mental 操作／手術. Everything learned was 再生するd in a physical difference to the brain. You knew that, but you didn't see the 十分な consequences. Then （機の）カム the 発明 of surgical education--the simple system of 開始 the 味方する of the skull and engrafting into it a piece of 用意が出来ている brain. At first, of course, they had to use, I suppose, the brains of dead people, and that was 恐ろしい"--here the Man in Asbestos shuddered like a leaf--"but very soon they 設立する how to make moulds that did just 同様に. After that it was a mere nothing; an 操作／手術 of a few minutes would 十分である to let in poetry or foreign languages or history or anything else that one cared to have. Here, for instance," he 追加するd, 押し進めるing 支援する the hair at the 味方する of his 長，率いる and showing a scar beneath it, "is the 示す where I had my spherical trigonometry let in. That was, I 収容する／認める, rather painful, but other things, such as English poetry or history, can be 挿入するd 絶対 without the least 苦しむing. When I think of your painful, barbarous methods of education through the ear, I shudder at it. Oddly enough, we have 設立する lately that for a 広大な／多数の／重要な many things there is no need to use the 長，率いる. We 宿泊する them--things like philosophy and metaphysics, and so on--in what used to be the digestive apparatus. They fill it admirably."

He paused a moment. Then went on:

"井戸／弁護士席, then, to continue, what used to 占領する your time and 成果／努力 after your education?"

"Why," I said, "one had, of course, to work, and then, to tell the truth, a 広大な／多数の／重要な part of one's time and feeling was 充てるd toward the other sex, toward 落ちるing in love and finding some woman to 株 one's life."

"Ah," said the Man in Asbestos, with real 利益／興味. "I've heard about your 手はず／準備 with the women, but never やめる understood them. Tell me; you say you selected some woman?"

"Yes."

"And she became what you called your wife?"

"Yes, of course."

"And you worked for her?" asked the Man in Asbestos in astonishment.

"Yes."

"And she did not work?"

"No," I answered, "of course not."

"And half of what you had was hers?"

"Yes."

"And she had the 権利 to live in your house and use your things?"

"Of course," I answered.

"How dreadful!" said the Man in Asbestos. "I hadn't realized the horrors of your age till now."

He sat shivering わずかに, with the same timid look in his 直面する as before.

Then it suddenly struck me that of the 人物／姿／数字s on the street, all had looked alike.

"Tell me," I said, "are there no women now? Are they gone too?"

"Oh, no," answered the Man in Asbestos, "they're here just the same. Some of those are women. Only, you see, everything has been changed now. It all （機の）カム as part of their 広大な／多数の／重要な 反乱, their 願望（する） to be like the men. Had that begun in your time?"

"Only a little." I answered; "they were beginning to ask for 投票（する）s and equality."

"That's it," said my 知識, "I couldn't think of the word. Your women, I believe, were something awful, were they not? Covered with feathers and 肌s and dazzling colours made of dead things all over them? And they laughed, did they not, and had foolish teeth, and at any moment they could inveigle you into one of those 契約s? Ugh!"

He shuddered.

"Asbestos," I said (I knew no other 指名する to call him), as I turned on him in wrath, "Asbestos, do you think that those jelly-捕らえる、獲得する Equalities out on the street there, with their ash-バーレル／樽 控訴s, can be compared for one moment with our unredeemed, unreformed, heaven-created, hobble-skirted women of the twentieth century?"

Then, suddenly, another thought flashed into my mind--

"The children," I said, "where are the children? Are there any?"

"Children," he said, "no! I have never heard of there 存在 any such things for at least a century. Horrible little hobgoblins they must have been! 広大な／多数の／重要な big 直面するs, and cried 絶えず! And grew, did they not? Like funguses! I believe they were longer each year than they had been the last, and--"

I rose.

"Asbestos!" I said, "this, then, is your coming Civilization, your millennium. This dull, dead thing, with the work and the 重荷（を負わせる） gone out of life, and with them all the joy and sweetness of it. For the old struggle mere stagnation, and in place of danger and death, the dull monotony of 安全 and the horror of an unending decay! Give me 支援する," I cried, and I flung wide my 武器 to the dull 空気／公表する, "the old life of danger and 強調する／ストレス, with its hard toil and its bitter chances, and its heartbreaks. I see its value! I know its 価値（がある）! Give me no 残り／休憩（する）," I cried aloud--

. . . . . . .

"Yes, but give a 残り／休憩（する） to the 残り／休憩（する） of the 回廊（地帯）!" cried an 怒り／怒るd 発言する／表明する that broke in upon my exultation.

Suddenly my sleep had gone.

I was 支援する again in the room of my hotel, with the hum of the wicked, busy old world all about me, and loud in my ears the 発言する／表明する of the indignant man across the 回廊（地帯）.

"やめる your blatting, you infernal blatherskite," he was calling. "Come 負かす／撃墜する to earth."

I （機の）カム.

THE END

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