But others pointed out that all of that had happened long ago, that life was quiet now, that policemen were rarely seen, even though they were still believed to exist.
But why had Smith come? Some felt that he was here to take something from us. “What other reason is there for a stranger to come to a village like this?” And others felt that he had come to give us something, citing the same argument.
But we didn’t know. We simply had to wait until Smith chose to reveal himself.
He moved among us as other men do. He had knowledge of the outside world; he seemed to us a far-traveling man. And slowly, he began to give us clues as to his identity.
One day I took him to a rise which looks out over our valley. This was at midautumn, a pretty time. Smith looked out and declared it a fine sight. “It puts me in mind of that famous tag from William James,” he said. “How does it go? ‘Scenery seems to wear in one’s consciousness better than any other element in life.’ Eh? Apt, don’t you think?”
“Who is or was this William James?” I asked.
Smith winked at me. “Did I mention that name? Slip of the tongue, my lad.”
But that was not the last “slip of the tongue.” A few days later I pointed out an ugly hillside covered with second-growth pine, low coarse shrubbery, and weeds. “This burned five years ago,” I told him. “Now it serves no purpose at all.”
“Yes, I see,” Smith said. “And yet—as Montaigne tells us—there is nothing useless in nature, not even uselessness itself.”
And still later, walking through the village, he paused to admire Mrs. Vogel’s late-blooming peonies. He said, “Flowers do indeed have the glances of children and the mouths of old men...Just as Chazal pointed out.”
Toward the end of the week, a few of us got together in the back of Edmonds’s store and began to discuss Mr. Edgar Smith. I mentioned the things he had said to me. Bill Edmonds remembered that Smith had cited a man named Emerson, to the effect that solitude was impractical, and society fatal. Billy Foreclough told us that Smith had quoted Ion of Chios to him: that Luck differs greatly from Art, yet creates many things that are like it. And Mrs. Gordon suddenly came up with the best of the lot; a statement Smith told her was made by the great Leonardo da Vinci: vows begin when hope dies.
We looked at each other and were silent. It was evident to everyone that Mr. Edgar Smith—or whatever his real name might be—was no simple repairer of furniture.
At last I put into words what we were all thinking. “Friends,” I said, “this man appears to be a Mnemone.”
Mnemones as a distinct class came into prominence during the last year of the War Which Ended All Wars. Their self-proclaimed function was to remember works of literature which were in danger of being lost, destroyed, or suppressed.
At first, the government welcomed their efforts, encouraged them, even rewarded them with pensions and grants. But when the war ended and the reign of the Police Presidents began, government policy changed. A general decision was made to jettison the unhappy past, to build a new world in and of the present. Disturbing influences were to be struck down without mercy.
Right-thinking men agreed that most literature was superfluous at best, subversive at worst. After all, was it necessary to preserve the mouthings of a thief like Villon, a homosexual like Genet, a schizophrenic like Kafka? Did we need to retain a thousand divergent opinions, and then to explain why they were false? Under such a bombardment of influences, how could anyone be expected to respond in an appropriate and approved manner? How would one ever get people to obey orders?
The government knew that if everyone obeyed orders, everything would be all right.
But to achieve this blessed state, divergent and ambiguous inputs had to be abolished. The biggest single source of confusing inputs came from historical and artistic verbiage. Therefore, history was to be rewritten, and literature was to be regularized, pruned, tamed, made orderly or abolished entirely.
The Mnemones were ordered to leave the past strictly alone. They objected to this most vehemently, of course. Discussions continued until the government lost patience. A final order was issued, with heavy penalties for those who would not comply.
Most of the Mnemones gave up their work. A few only pretended to, however. These few became an elusive, persecuted minority of itinerant teachers, endlessly on the move, selling their knowledge where and when they could.
We questioned the man who called himself Edgar Smith, and he revealed himself to us as a Mnemone. He gave immediate and lavish gifts to our village:
Two sonnets by William Shakespeare.
Job’s Lament to God.
One entire act of a play by Aristophanes.
This done, he set himself up in business, offering his wares for sale to the villagers.
He drove a hard bargain with Mr. Ogden, forcing him to exchange an entire pig for two lines of Simonides.
Mr. Bellington, the recluse, gave up his gold watch for a saying by Heraclitus. He considered it a fair exchange.
Old Mrs. Heath exchanged a pound of goosefeathers for three stanzas from a poem entitled “Atalanta in Calydon,” by a man named Swinburne.
Mr. Mervin, who owns the restaurant, purchased an entire short ode by Catullus, a description of Cicero by Tacitus, and ten lines from Homer’s Catalog of Ships. This cost his entire savings.
I had little in the way of money or property. But for services rendered, I received a paragraph of Montaigne, a saying ascribed to Socrates, and ten fragmentary lines by Anacreon.
An unexpected customer was Mr. Lind, who came stomping into the Mnemone’s office one crisp winter morning. Mr. Lind was short, red-faced, and easily moved to anger. He was the most successful farmer in the area, a man of no-nonsense who believed only in what he could see and touch. He was the last man whom you’d ever expect to buy the Mnemone’s wares. Even a policeman would have been a more likely prospect.
“Well, well,” Lind began, rubbing his hands briskly together. “I’ve heard about you and your invisible merchandise.”
“And I’ve heard about you,” the Mnemone said, with a touch of malice to his voice. “Do you have business with me?”
“Yes, by God, I do!” Lind cried. “I want to buy some of your fancy old words.”
“I am genuinely surprised,” the Mnemone said. “Who would ever have dreamed of finding a law-abiding citizen like yourself in a situation like this, buying goods which are not only invisible, but illegal as well!”
“It’s not my choice,” Lind said. “I have come here only to please my wife, who is not well these days.”
“Not well? I’m not surprised,” the Mnemone said. “An ox would sicken under the workload you give her.”
“Man, that’s no concern of yours!” Lind said furiously.
“But it is,” the Mnemone said. “In my profession we do not give out words at random. We fit our lines to the recipient. Sometimes we find nothing appropriate, and therefore sell nothing at all.”
“I thought you sold your wares to all buyers.”
“You have been misinformed. I know a Pindaric ode I would not sell to you for any price.”
“Man, you can’t talk to me that way!”
“I speak as I please. You are free to take your business somewhere else.”
Mr. Lind glowered and pouted and sulked, but there was nothing he could do. At last he said, “I didn’t mean to lose my temper. Will you sell me something for my wife? Last week was her birthday, but I didn’t remember it until just now.”
“You are a pretty fellow,” the Mnemone said. “As sentimental as a mink, and almost as loving as a shark! Why come to me for her present? Wouldn’t a sturdy butter churn be more suitable?”