with two great choruses from the Home of
the Actors, which speak and answer all together,
in two great voices. The plays are about
toil and how good it is. Then we walk
back to the Home in a straight column.
The sky is like a black sieve pierced
by silver drops that tremble, ready to
burst through. The moths beat against
the street lanterns. We go to our beds
and we sleep, till the bell rings again.
The sleeping halls are white and clean and
bare of all things save one hundred beds.

Thus have we lived each day of four
years, until two springs ago when our
crime happened. Thus must all men live
until they are forty. At forty, they are
worn out. At forty, they are sent to the
Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones
live. The Old Ones do not work, for the
State takes care of them. They sit in the
sun in summer and they sit by the fire in
winter. They do not speak often, for they
are weary. The Old Ones know that they
are soon to die. When a miracle happens
and some live to be forty-five, they are the
Ancient Ones, and the children stare at them
when passing by the Home of the Useless.
Such is to be our life, as that of all our
brothers and of the brothers who came before us.