Methuselah's Children Read Online Free Page A

that's right, two hundred and thirteen."
    There was a sudden, complete silence. Then Mary said quietly, "Did you hear me inquire for anyone older than myself?"
    "Yes. But shucks, Sister, you were doing all right. I ain't attended a meeting of the Families in over a century. Been some changes."
    "I'll ask you to carry on from here." She started to leave the platform.
    "Oh no!" he protested. But she paid no attention and found a seat. He looked around, shrugged and gave in. Sprawling one hip over a corner of the speaker's table he announced, "All right, let's get on with it. Who's next?"
    Ralph Schultz of the Schultz Family looked more like a banker than a psychometrician. He was neither shy nor absent-minded and he had a flat, underemphasized way of talking that carried authority. "I was part of the group that proposed ending the 'Masquerade.' I was wrong. I believed that the great majority of our fellow citizens, reared under modern educational methods, could evaluate any data without excessive emotional disturbance. I anticipated that a few abnormal people would dislike us, even hate us; I even predicted that most people would envy us-everybody who enjoys life would like to live a long time. But I did not anticipate any serious trouble. Modern attitudes have done away with inter-racial friction; any who still harbor race prejudice are ashamed to voice it. I believed that our society was so tolerant that we could live peacefully and openly with the short-lived.
    "I was wrong.
    "The Negro hated and envied the white man as long as the white man enjoyed privileges forbidden the Negro by reason of color. This was a sane, normal reaction. When discrimination was removed, the problem solved itself and cultural assimilation took place. There is a similar tendency on the part of the short-lived to envy the long-lived. We assumed that this expected reaction would be of no social importance in most people once it was made clear that we owe our peculiarity to our genes-no fault nor virtue of our own, just good luck in our ancestry.
    "This was mere wishful thinking. By hindsight it is easy to see that correct application of mathematical analysis to the data would have given a different answer, would have spotlighted the false analogy. I do not defend the misjudgment, no defense is possible. We were led astray by our hopes.
    "What actually happened was this: we showed our shortlived cousins the greatest boon it is possible for a man to imagine . . . then we told them it could never be theirs. This faced them with an unsolvable dilemma. They have rejected the unbearable facts, they refuse to believe us. Their envy now turns to hate, with an emotional conviction that we are depriving them of their rights . . . deliberately, maliciously.
    "That rising hate has now swelled into a flood which threatens the welfare and even the lives of all our revealed brethren . . . and which is potentially as dangerous to the rest of us. The danger is very great and very pressing." He sat down abruptly.
    They took it calmly, with the unhurried habit of years. Presently a female delegate stood up. "Eve Barstow, for the Cooper Family. Ralph Schultz, I am a hundred and nineteen years old, older, I believe, than you are. I do not have your talent for mathematics and human behavior but I have known a lot of people. Human beings are inherently good and gentle and kind. Oh, they have their weaknesses but most of them are decent enough if you give them half a chance. I cannot believe that they would hate me and destroy me simply because I have lived a long time. What have you to go on? You admit one mistake-why not two?"
    Schultz looked at her soberly and smoothed his kilt "You're right, Eve. I could easily be wrong again. That's the trouble with psychology; it is a subject so terribly complex, so many unknowns, such involved relationships, that our best efforts sometimes look silly in the bleak light of later facts." He stood up again, faced the others, and again