The Second Invasion from Mars

June 13

Finally, it seems, summer weather has arrived. Temperature: +22° C, cloudy ...

What things are going on! I don't even know how to begin. In regard to my pension nothing is known, but in the final analysis it's not a matter of my pension anymore. Just now, when I began today's entry, I suddenly heard a car approaching. I thought it was only Myrtilus bringing the quart of bluebeer he promised from the farm, and I looked out to see. As it happened, I looked out at just the right time. At first I saw an unfamiliar car under the streetlight, very deluxe, and then I noticed that coming across the garden with a decisive step, straight toward the bench where Artemis and Mr. Nicostratus had settled down since evening, was Charon. Before I could blink my eye, Mr. Nicostratus had flown higgledy-piggledy over the fence. With superhuman strength Charon hurled his walking stick and hat after him, but Mr. Nicostratus did not stop to pick them up and only ran faster. Then Charon turned to Artemis. It was hard for me to see what happened between them, but I have the impression that at first Artemis tried to fall in a faint; however, when Charon pasted her one up against the side of the head, she changed her mind and decided instead to show her celebrated temperament. She let out a long, ear-splitting scream and slashed at Charon's physiognomy with her fingernails. I repeat, I did not see all of this. But when I looked into the living room a few minutes later, Charon was pacing from corner to corner like a caged tiger, holding his hands behind his back, and a fresh scratch was turning crimson on his nose. Artemis was setting the table matter-of-factly, but I noticed that her face looked a little bit asymmetrical. I can't stand family scenes, I get all weak inside and feel like going away somewhere where I will see and hear nothing. However, Charon noticed me before I could slip out and contrary to all expectations greeted me so cordially and warmly that I considered it impossible to go into the living room and strike up a conversation with him.

Above all, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that Charon looked quite unlike what I had expected. This was no longer that shaggy and raggedy bum who had clanked his gun around and railed at me a week ago. In fact, I had expected him to be even more ragged and dirty. But before me sat the previous Charon of peaceful times, smoothly shaven, neatly combed, elegantly and tastefully dressed. Only the crimson scratch on his nose somewhat spoiled the overall impression, and also his complexion, which was unusually swarthy, testified to the fact that in recent days this office worker had spent a lot of time under the open sky.

Hermione came in wearing hairpins, excused herself for her appearance and also sat down at the table. And there we sat, the four of us, just as in the old days, one peaceful family. Until the women cleared the table and left, the conversation revolved around general subjects: the weather, health, how Charon looked. But once we were left alone, Charon lit up a cigar and said, looking at me strangely, "Well, what do you think, father, is our cause lost?"

In answer I simply shrugged my shoulders, although I very much felt like saying that if anyone's cause was lost, it certainly wasn't ours. But then, in my view, Charon didn't expect an answer. Around the women he had kept calm, and only now did I notice that he was in a state of extreme agitation, almost to the point of sickness, that state in which a man is able to switch abruptly from nervous laughter to nervous weeping, when everything is bubbling inside him and he feels an overwhelming need to release this bubbling in words and therefore talks, talks, talks. And Charon talked.

There is no more future for people, he said. Man has ceased to be the pinnacle of nature. For now and evermore and throughout all eternity man would be an ordinary phenomenon of nature like a tree or horse, nothing more. Culture and progress together had lost all meaning. Mankind no longer required self-development, it would be developed from outside, and so schools would no longer be needed, institutes and laboratories would no longer be needed, social thought would no longer be needed - in a word, everything that distinguished man from beast and was called civilization would no longer be needed. As a factory of stomach juice, Albert Einstein was no better than Pandareus, most likely worse, since Pandareus was marked by rare gluttony. Not in the boom of a cosmic catastrophe, not in the flames of nuclear war and not even in the clutches of overpopulation would the history of mankind come to an end, but, don't you see, in calm, sated tranquility.

"Just think," he said with his voice breaking, holding his head in his hands, "civilization wasn't destroyed by ballistic missiles, but by nothing more than a handful of coppers for a glass of stomach juice.. .."

He spoke, of course, much longer and much more effectively, but I understand abstract reasoning poorly and remembered only what I remembered. To be frank, he succeeded in depressing me. However, I rather quickly understood that all this was simply the hysterical verborrhea of a cultured man who had experienced the collapse of his personal ideals. And so I felt it necessary to raise an objection. Not, of course, because I hoped to convince him of the opposite, but because his judgments deeply wounded me, they struck me as grandiose and immodest, and besides I wanted to get away from that oppressive feeling produced by his lamentations.

"You've had too easy a life, my son," I said pointedly. "You're getting picky. You don't know anything about life. Right away one can see that you've never been bashed in the teeth, youVe never frozen in the trenches and you've never hauled logs in prison. YouVe always had enough to eat and money to pay for it. YouVe gotten used to looking at the world through the eyes of a god in heaven, that superman of yours. What a pity - civilization has been sold for a handful of coppers! Just say thanks that you're given these coppers for it! For you, of course, they're not worth much. But for a widow who has to bring up three children, to feed them, educate them, raise them? And for Polyphemus, a cripple who receives a meager pension? And a farmer? What would you offer a farmer? Some dubious little social ideas? Booklets, brochures? Your esthetic philosophy? Well, a farmer would spit on the whole deal! He needs clothes, machines, he needs the certainty of tomorrow! He needs the constant possibility of raising a crop and receiving a good price for it! Could you give him that? You and your civilization! No one has been able to give him that for ten thousand years, but the Martians did it! Where's the wonder that the farmers now hound you like wild beasts? No one needs you and your discussions, your snobbery, your abstract prophecies which so easily change into machine-gun fire. The farmer doesn't need you, the city dweller doesn't need you, the Martians don't need you. I am even certain that most reasonable educated people don't need you. You imagine yourself the flower of civilization, but in fact you are the mold growing over its juices. You've elevated yourself in your own mind and now you imagine that your downfall is the downfall of all civilization."

It seemed to me that I had literally slain him with my speech. He sat with his face in his hands, shaking all over. It was so pitiful that my heart flooded with blood.

"Charon," I said as gently as possible, "my child! Try for a moment to descend from the cloudy spheres to the sinful earth. Try to understand that what man needs most in the world is tranquility and the certainty of tomorrow. After all, nothing so terrible has happened. Here you say that man has been converted into a stomach-juice factory. Those are ringing words, Charon, but in fact the reverse has occurred. Man, coming upon new conditions of existence, has found an excellent way to utilize his physiological resources to simplify his position in the world. You call this slavery, but every reasonable man considers it an ordinary business deal which should be mutually profitable. What kind of slavery can it be if the reasonable man is already figuring out whether or not he is being cheated, and if he really is being cheated, I can assure you, he will have justice. You speak of the end of culture and civilization, but this is completely untrue! It's impossible even to say what you have in mind. The newspapers come out every day, new books are being published, new television shows are being created, industry is working. ... Charon! What more do you need! You've been left everything that you had: freedom of speech, self-determination, the constitution. Not only that, you've been protected from Mr. Laomedon! And, finally, you have been given a constant and reliable source of income, which doesn't depend on any competition."

I ended on this, because I discovered that Charon was by no means slain and was not sobbing, as it had seemed to me, but was giggling in the most indecent way. I considered myself highly offended, but here Charon said:

"Forgive me, for God's sake, I didn't want to offend you. I simply remembered an amusing story."

It happened that two days ago Charon and his group of five insurgents had seized a Martian car. How amazed they were when out of the car clambered a completely sober Minotaur with a portable device for sucking out stomach juice. "What d'ya say, fellows, feel like a drink?" he asked. "C'mon, I'll set you up right away. Who's first?" The insurgents were dumbfounded. When they recovered their senses, they half-heartedly slapped Minotaur around for being a traitor and then let him go with his car. They had thought of seizing the car to learn to drive it, and then to penetrate a Martian post with it and stage a battle there, but this episode had such an effect on them that they began to spit on everything. That very evening two of them went home, and the next day the rest of them were taken by the armers.

I didn't quite get the connection between this story and the topic of our conversation, but I was struck by the thought that Charon had consequently been held captive by the Marians.

"Yes," he answered by question, "that's why I was laughing. The Martians told me the same thing as you, point for point. True, a bit more coherently. And they especially emphasized that I was the elite of society, they felt deep respect for me and failed to understand why I and others like me were carrying out terroristic activities instead of forming a reasonable opposition. They proposed that we fight them by legal means, guaranteeing us complete freedom of the press and the right of assembly. Great fellows, the Martians - right?"

What could I answer him? Especially when it became clear that they had treated him most civilly, bathed him, clothed him, treated his wounds, given him an automobile confiscated from the owner of some opium den and let him go with their blessing.

'Words fail me," I said, throwing up my hands.

"Me too," replied Charon, darkening again. "Words still fail me too, but we must find them. We're worth a pittance if we don't find them."

After this he completely unexpectedly wished me a good night and went to his room, while I remained sitting there like a fool, seized by an unpleasant foreboding. Oh, we are going to have more trouble with Charon! Oh, we are for sure! And what a disgusting way to leave, without having finished the argument. It's already 1 a.m., and my eye is wide open.

Incidentally, today I gave stomach juice for the first time. No big deal, only it's unpleasant to swallow; but they say that soon you get used to it. If you give 200 grams every day, that makes 150 bills a month. Wow!