"How else can men be when they live for
their brothers?"

And now, sitting here in our tunnel, we
wonder about these words. It is forbidden,
not to be happy. For, as it has been
explained to us, men are free and the earth
belongs to them; and all things on earth belong
to all men; and the will of all men together is
good for all; and so all men must be happy.

Yet as we stand at night in the great hall,
removing our garments for sleep, we look
upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads
of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our
brothers are dull, and never do they look
one another in the eyes. The shoulders
of our brothers are hunched, and their
muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were
shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight.
And a word steals into our mind, as we look
upon our brothers, and that word is fear.

There is fear hanging in the air of the
sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets.
Fear walks through the City, fear without name,
without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.

We feel it also, when we are in the Home of the
Street Sweepers. But here, in our tunnel,