london will be the first utopian city centre we shall see.
we shall find ourselves there with not a little amazement. it will be our first experience of the swift long distance travel of utopia, and i have an idea — i know not why — that we should make the journey by night. perhaps i think so because the ideal of long-distance travel is surely a restful translation less suitable for the active hours.
we shall dine and gossip and drink coffee at the pretty little tables under the lantern-lit trees, we shall visit the theatre, and decide to sup in the train, and so come at last to the station. there we shall find pleasant rooms with seats and books — luggage all neatly elsewhere — and doors that we shall imagine give upon a platform. our cloaks and hats and such-like outdoor impedimenta will be taken in the hall and neatly labelled for london, we shall exchange our shoes for slippers there, and we shall sit down like men in a club. an officious little bell will presently call our attention to a label “london” on the doorway, and an excellent phonograph will enforce that notice with infinite civility. the doors will open, and we shall walk through into an equally comfortable gallery.
“where is the train for london?” we shall ask a uniformed fellow utopian.
“this is the train for london,” he will say.
there will be a shutting of doors, and the botanist and i, trying not to feel too childish, will walk exploring through the capacious train.
the resemblance to a club will strike us both. “a good club,” the botanist will correct me.
when one travels beyond a certain speed, there is nothing but fatigue in looking out of a window, and this corridor train, twice the width of its poor terrestrial brother, will have no need of that distraction. the simple device of abandoning any but a few windows, and those set high, gives the wall space of the long corridors to books; the middle part of the train is indeed a comfortable library with abundant armchairs and couches, each with its green-shaded light, and soft carpets upon the soundproof floor. further on will be a news-room, with a noiseless but busy tape at one corner, printing off messages from the wires by the wayside, and further still, rooms for gossip and smoking, a billiard room, and the dining car. behind we shall come to bedrooms, bathrooms, the hairdresser, and so forth.
“when shall we start?” i ask presently, as we return, rather like bashful yokels, to the library, and the old gentleman reading the arabian nights in the armchair in the corner glances up at me with a sudden curiosity.
the botanist touches my arm and nods towards a pretty little lead-paned window, through which we see a village sleeping under cloudy moonlight go flashing by. then a skylit lake, and then a string of swaying lights, gone with the leap of a camera shutter.
two hundred miles an hour!
we resort to a dignified chinese steward and secure our berths. it is perhaps terrestrial of us that we do not think of reading the utopian literature that lines the middle part of the train. i find a bed of the simple utopian pattern, and lie for a time thinking — quite tranquilly — of this marvellous adventure.
i wonder why it is that to lie securely in bed, with the light out, seems ever the same place, wherever in space one may chance to be? and asleep, there is no space for us at all. i become drowsy and incoherent and metaphysical. . . .
the faint and fluctuating drone of the wheels below the car, re-echoed by the flying track, is more perceptible now, but it is not unpleasantly loud, merely a faint tinting of the quiet. . . .
no sea crossing breaks our journey; there is nothing to prevent a channel tunnel in that other planet; and i wake in london.
the train has been in london some time when i awake, for these marvellous utopians have discovered that it is not necessary to bundle out passengers from a train in the small hours, simply because they have arrived. a utopian train is just a peculiar kind of hotel corridor that flies about the earth while one sleeps.
