Do you feel abandoned when your partner goes to stay with someone else? Would you prefer two-on-one intercourse (two men, one woman)? Would you be willing to take part in collective intercourse? If your partner has a child, would you be unconcerned with whose it is, or would you try to figure out whether it was yours? Do you think the quality of a child is related to the congenital potential of its parents? Do you think it would be appropriate to assign partners as couples based on their congenital traits? Respondents may select one of four options: Yes, No, I don’t know, I’d rather not think about it. Zeffirino also proposed issuing bonds which we could sell in Europe and Rio de Janeiro, guaranteed by our settlement’s ten-year economic development plan. Decio declared that Zeffirino was a fool, and Mr. Crisson said that issuing bonds would be capitalistic. Our group is the fifth to have come here from Europe, and one more family arrived after us, a father and mother with five children. Is that all? asked Benito, one of the older settlers, when the family appeared in the courtyard. Well then. Welcome to the Fraternitas free settlement. The four greatest attractions of our settlement are poverty, envy, suspicion, and alcoholism. Welcome, friends, welcome. Their oldest daughter is named Florinda, she’s fifteen or sixteen. Luigi said that Benito sees everything too darkly and that he was eroding our pioneering optimism. And that based on the rhythm of ships sailing from Europe and Rio, other friends, both male and female, should be turning up soon. Especially female, Luigi says. It wouldn’t take much for the settlers to regain their zest for work, he says, three or four true anarchists would do the trick. He sees the problem as being mainly that there are far more men than women in the settlement and most of them suffer from old prejudices and reject polyandry. Florinda began to flirt with the men right off, but she didn’t want to do anything with any of them for a long time. Then all of a sudden she began sleeping with six or seven at once. Some of the men are uneasy about it, and say two or three partners is normal but that seven is too much. Her parents are threatening to leave the settlement. Johann and Kris had a fight over her, Johann accused Kris of knocking the ladder out from under him on purpose while they were building a cabin. Kris said that he didn’t even touch the ladder, and that Johann is jealous of him and pulled a knife and stabbed him in the forearm. There isn’t any shared entertainment like we used to have on the ship, at best people play cards or checkers, and most of the settlers drink every night, sometimes even during the day. Then come evening they sleep off their hangovers in front of their cabins or by the side of the road and the dogs come and sniff them. Tranquillo Agottani has gotten old, he doesn’t want to talk to anyone or do any work, at most he goes to fetch water. When he gets drunk he says, Give me back the sea! Give me back the sea! and swears at everyone. Decio drinks a lot too. One day, drunk, he surprised me and Germaine in bed, and instead of leaving he walked around the room shouting, Just go ahead and screw, screw, screwing is the future of humanity. Carlo drowned bringing the donkeys to the river. Some say that he was drunk too, but others don’t believe it and say that it was murder. Then a rumor spread that one of the neighboring settlements was getting ready to attack us and steal our property because something of theirs had gone missing and people there were convinced that the anarchists had done it. Supposedly they call our settlement Sodom. Sodomy is allowed here, but not with animals, since that might unsettle them and the farmers are opposed to it. Mr. Crisson says that when people do it it isn’t sodomy but pederasty or sapphism. Most people, though, think that pederasty is against the laws of nature and shouldn’t be tolerated in an anarchistic settlement, because anarchy professes to love nature. Mr. Crisson says that it isn’t so simple and it hasn’t been established whether pederasty exists among animals too or not. And that the presence of pederasty and the degree of tolerance in a society are in fact philosophical problems. Wilhelm disagrees and says the Greek philosophers were opposed to pederasty, and that one of them, Aristotle, described the case of a horse which on seeing pederasts would become so frightened that it rose up on its hind legs and whinnied. Mr. Crisson said he knew that book and it wasn’t about pederasty but about parents having intercourse with children, which, unlike pederasty, had been established in nature long ago, Aristotle or no. Umberto said that he would never understand pederasty in his life but he had nothing against sapphism. Nobody knows whether or not the women in the settlement have intercourse together, but Egizio and Primo were supposedly pederasts. Egizio and Primo left the settlement several weeks ago, and most of the Egalitarians are also making ready to leave. Puig Mayol stole 500 réis from the treasury, almost half of our money, and fled. Zeffirino and a group of volunteers gave pursuit, they laid in wait for him outside a pub in Guaragi, tied him up, and dragged him back. I’ve never killed anyone. Not even a large animal, like a pig or a goat. We bought four new muskets and the Egalitarians submitted a proposal for the sexual reorganization of the settlement. Each man and woman would have only one partner. Couples would be determined by lots, at least until there were enough women in the settlement. Every three months there would be a new lottery. The pederasts could live together in one cabin, but they wouldn’t be included in the lottery, as that would be pointless. We were supposed to meet to discuss it the next day, but then the incident with Puig occurred, and we have yet to meet to this day. Each settler is entitled to 120 grams of meat a week, children under twelve are entitled to 50. Our money is dwindling and we haven’t thought of a way to earn any yet, except for the occasional sale of handcrafted items at the market in Guaragi and our work on the road. Which has the advantage that we get the money the same day, in the evening after work. Manpower is scarce and it has yet to happen that the foremen have refused anyone, unless they show up late or drunk. We turn our earnings over to Siegfried, who is in charge of the account book, but that often leads to disputes, since some men turn over only part of their money, or go and work for another group on the sly, so that they can keep everything. One day Gian Manni reported that on his way back he had been jumped and had his money stolen, but then it came to light that he had lost it in the casino which the stonecutters from Paranaguá had opened at the construction site. Manni is known as Got-Up-Early-in-the-Evening. A lot of the older settlers are known by nicknames, usually based on some incident. Benito said that it was an Indian custom, and that it had been introduced to the settlement by some German who was known as Scorched Head and who in the end went off to live with the Indians. Some of the settlers I know only by their nicknames, Looked-for-Poppy, Chased Water, Sharp Grass, Can’t-Get-It-Up. The other settlers have normal, non-Indian nicknames, Melonhead, Fatso, Jawbone, Gash, She-Dog, and so on. Puig Mayol didn’t have any nickname. When they led him through the settlement, a lot of people shook their fists at him and spit on him. The next day there was a trial, which everyone took part in except Decio. Zeffirino proposed the death penalty, since theft may be excusable in the world of capital, where people are exploited, but when a person is free and surrounded by other free citizens, theft is inexcusable, especially given that the settlement needs money for the purchase of tools and seeds, which Puig Mayol knew very well, and in spite of that he committed a crime against our fraternal settlement and thus against all humanity. And he said that he could imagine no greater baseness and that evil must be nipped in the bud, for only in that way was it possible to build a new world. People clapped and shouted, Bravo! Bravo! and it was a long time before they quieted down. Finally Mr. Crisson took the floor and asked that Puig Mayol be granted a counsel for defense, but Zeffirino said there was nothing to defend here, the factual basis of the crime had been proven, and most of the people began to clap all over again. Marco, Luigi, Dorgen, Smala, and a few other settlers tried to shout over them to voice their agreement with Mr. Crisson, but the others whistled and swore at them. Luigi went to fetch Decio, to speak against Zeffirino, but found him completely drunk and unable to utter a sentence. Zeffirino meanwhile proposed that each settler individually state their choice of punishment so that justice would receive its due. A lot of people refused, but others asked to speak and said, Death, I demand death, I vote for death, and Bonifacio said, His sort ought to be crushed like a bedbug, and Cattina said, We aren’t going to clasp a viper to our bosom, and Helmuth said, Do we have any choice if we want to go on living in mutual trust? The Egalitarians, who wanted Puig ceremonially expelled from the settlement, were opposed, as were Marco, Luigi, Paolo, Smala, Vito, Mario, Giacomo, Dorgen, Monica Levi, Mr. Crisson and Mr. Mangin, Germaine and I, and another dozen people or so. Peno said, I refuse to share the blame for the death of my brother, and Mr. Mangin said, Let’s give him another chance, he’s a wretched soul the same as us after all, and Germaine said, If we are free, let us wish freedom unto others, even if they commit an evil deed toward us. A third group of people was undecided and didn’t want to vote and Elisabetta said, It’s a difficult decision, I really don’t know. But the most numerous were those who called for death. Puig Mayol didn’t have one true friend in the settlement, he had come by himself and spoke only Portuguese, but he worked with the rest in the workshop and treated people kindly. At one time he had lived with Charlotte, who everyone called Rusty, she had come with her son in the first group, her husband was killed by the national guard, but in the end she left. Zeffirino announced that the result of the voting was clear and that he thanked those who had voted for the strictest sanction and hadn’t allowed themselves to be appeased by unconvincing excuses, because humanity is more important than individual human life. Then began a debate about whether the execution should be public and by what means it should be carried out in order to distinguish it from executions in the world of capital. Torres proposed using an Indian method: when an Indian is condemned to death, a council of elders chooses five or six men and they draw lots to see which of them will be the executioner. Then one steps up to the condemned from behind, sticks his fingers in his nostrils, tips his head back, and slits his throat. And someone asked, So who will take this on himself? and everyone was silent. Torres said that we could draw lots like the Indians do, but Aldino said that it was out of the question for him to take part in a lottery and if Torres was so smart, why didn’t he slit Mayol’s throat himself? Torres said maybe an Indian woman could do it, but one of them said that it was a man’s job. Someone objected that women were equal to men in our settlement, and if men washed dishes, then a woman could do a man’s work, but the Indian woman got mad and began to scream at him in Indian and the other Indian women joined in and one of them began to sing and one by one all of them broke into song. Zeffirino asked them to stop, but they just sang even louder, and Paolo began to sing a song about brotherhood and we joined in, and when we were done, Penot and Roche began to sing another song, which said that a free man knows no anger, and then some of the Germans began to sing too, and the Indian women clapped along, and then Decio came staggering up and said what were we celebrating and finally there was some fun around here. But while some people sang, others were whistling and shouting, Quiet! and Zeffirino was screaming that it was an attempt at diversion and that such practices were unworthy of democracy.