“We’ll be gone half an hour.
Tell them that, sir.”
The captain hesitated, then rose and called an order down the hill.
Spender led him over into a little Martian village built all of cool perfect marble.
There were great friezes of beautiful animals, white-limbed cat things and yellow-limbed sun symbols, and statues of bull-like creatures and statues of men and women and huge fine-featured dogs.
“There’s your answer, Captain.”
“I don’t see.”
“The Martians discovered the secret of life among animals.
The animal does not question life.
It lives.
Its very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes life.
You see — the statuary, the animal symbols, again and again.”
“It looks pagan.”
“On the contrary, those are God symbols, symbols of life.
Man had become too much man and not enough animal on Mars too.
And the men of Mars realized that in order to survive they would have to forgo asking that one question any longer: Why live?
Life was its own answer.
Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life is possible.
The Martians realized that they asked the question
«Why live at all?» at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer.
But once the civilization calmed, quieted, and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way.
Life was now good and needed no arguments.”
“It sounds as if the Martians were quite naive.”
“Only when it paid to be naive.
They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything.
They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that mirade.
They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful.
It’s all simply a matter of degree.
An Earth Man thinks:
«In that picture, color does not exist, really.
A scientist can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light.
Therefore, color is not really an actual part of things I happen to see.»
A Martian, far cleverer, would say:
«This is a fine picture.
It came from the hand and the mind of a man inspired.
Its idea and its color are from life.
This thing is good.»”
There was a pause.
Sitting in the afternoon sun, the captain looked curiously around at the little silent cool town.
“I’d like to live here,” he said.
“You may if you want.”
“You ask me that?”
“Will any of those men under you ever really understand all this?
They’re professional cynics, and it’s too late for them.
Why do you want to go back with them?
So you can keep up with the Joneses?
To buy a gyro just like Smith has?
To listen to music with your pocketbook instead of your glands?
There’s a little patio down here with a reel of Martian music in it at least fifty thousand years old.
It still plays.