Anthem: Parts 1–2

It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.

The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so.

And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt.

And we were punished when the Council of Vocations came to give us our life Mandates which tell those who reach their fifteenth year what their work is to be for the rest of their days.

We knew we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it. We would accept our Life Mandate, and we would work for our brothers, gladly and willingly, and we would erase our sin against them, which they did not know, but we knew.

The candles are lit, and the Councils of the different Homes stand in a pulpit, and they speak to us of our duties and of our brother men.

We wished to keep these things and to study them, but we had no place to hide them. So we carried them to the City Cesspool.

Now Union 5-3992 are a sickly lad and sometimes they are stricken with convulsions, when their mouth froths and their eyes turn white.

So on that day of the spring before last, Union 5-3992 were stricken with convulsions on the edge of the City, near the City Theatre.

Their head fell back, and their arms fell, as if their arms and their thin white neck were stricken suddenly with a great lassitude.

This is the time each spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to them by the Council of Eugenics.

So we were reprimanded tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun to sing aloud some tune we had never heard.

There are Fraternity 2-5503, a quiet boy with wise, kind eyes, who cry suddenly, without reason, in the midst of day or night, and their body shakes with sobs they cannot explain.

There are Solidarity 9-6347, who are a bright youth, without fear in the day; but they scream in their sleep, and they scream: “Help us! Help us! Help us!” into the night, in a voice which chills our bones, but the Doctors cannot cure Solidarity 9-6347.

As the chains were wound over their body at the stake, and a flame set to the pyre, the Transgressor looked upon the City.