Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America Read Online Free PDF Page A

the plank floor like the aggravated growling of a huge, buried dog. That vibration only added to the sense of moment, as the last illuminating flame was extinguished and the electric bulb within the mechanical projector flared up.
    The movie began. As it was the first I had ever seen, my astonishment was complete. I was so entranced by the illusion of photographs "come to life" that the substance of it almost escaped me ... but I remember an ornate title card, and scenes of the Second Battle of Quebec, re-created by actors but utterly real to me, accompanied by drum-banging and shrill pennywhistling to represent the reports of shot and shell. Those at the front of the auditorium flinched instinctively, while several of the village's prominent women came near to fainting, and grabbed up the hands or arms of their male companions, who might be as bruised, come morning, as if they had participated in the battle itself.
    Soon enough, however, the Dutchmen under their cross-and-laurel flag began to retreat from the American forces, and an actor representing the young Deklan Comstock came to the fore, reciting his Vows of Inauguration (a bit prematurely, but history was here truncated for the purposes of art)—that's the one in which he mentions both the Continental Imperative and the Debt to the Past. He was voiced, of course, by one of the Players, a bassoprofundo  whose tones emerged from his speaking-bell with ponderous gravity.
    (Which was also a slight revision of the truth, for the genuine Deklan Comstock possessed a high- pitched voice, and was prone to petulance.) The movie then proceeded to more decorous episodes and scenic views representing the glories of the reign of Deklan Conqueror, as he was known to the Army of the Laurentians, which had marched him to his ascendancy in New York City. Here was the reconstruction of Washington, DC (a project never completed, always in progress, hindered by a swampy climate and insect-borne diseases); here was the Illumination of Manhattan, whereby electric streetlights were powered by a hydroelectric dynamo, four hours every day between 6 and 10 p.m.; here was the military shipyard at Boston Harbor, the coal mines and re-rolling mills of Pennsylvania, the newest and shiniest steam engines to pull the newest and shiniest trains, etc., etc.
    I had to wonder at Julian's reaction to all this. This entire show, after all, had been concocted to extoll the virtues of the man who had executed his father. I couldn't forget—and Julian must be constantly aware—that the in-cumbent President here praised was in fact a fratricidal tyrant. But Julian's eyes were riveted on the screen. This reflected (I later learned) not his opinion of current events but his fascination with what he preferred to call "cinema."
    This making of illusions in two dimensions was never far from his mind—it was, perhaps, his "true calling," and would eventually culminate in the creation of Julian's suppressed cinematic masterwork, The Life and Adventures ofthe Great Naturalist Charles Darwin ... but I anticipate myself.
    The present movie went on to mention the successful forays against the Brazilians at Panama during Deklan Conqueror's reign, which may have struck closer to home, for I saw Julian flinch once or twice.
    As exciting as the movie was, I found my attention wandering from the screen. Perhaps it was the strangeness of the event, coming so close to Christmas. Or perhaps it was the influence of the History of Mankind in Space , which I had been reading in bed, a page or two a night, ever since our journey to the Tip. What ever the cause, I was beset by a sudden sense of melancholy. Here I was in the midst of everything that was familiar and ought to be comforting—the crowd of the leasing class, the enclosing benevolence of the Dominion Hall, the banners and tokens of the Christmas season—and it all felt suddenly thin,  as if the world were a bucket from which the bottom had dropped out.
    I supposed