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Erg Noor increased acceleration. He did not intend to take his expedition back to Earth by the normal seventy-two day route but to use the colossal power of the spaceship to make the journey in fifty hours with a minimum expenditure of anameson.
Transmission from Earth raced through space to Tantra and the planet greeted the victory over the gloom of the iron star and over the gloom of icy Pluto. Specially written songs and symphonies in honour of Tantra and Amat were performed.
The Cosmos resounded with triumphant melodies. Stations on Mars, Venus and the asteroids called the ship, their chords merging with the general chorus of homage to the heroes.
‘“Tantra… Tantra…” came, at last, the voice from the Council’s control post. “You may land on El Homra!”
The Central Cosmic Port was situated where there had formerly been a desert in North Africa and the spaceship made its way there through the sun-drenched atmosphere of Earth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SYMPHONY IN F-MINOR, COLOUR TONE 4.75 μ
The wall of the broad verandah facing south towards the sea was made of sheets of transparent plastic. The pale diffused light from the ceiling complemented rather than rivalled the moonlight, softening its dense black shadows. Almost the whole maritime expedition had gathered on the verandah, only the very youngest members of the expedition were still frolicking in the moonlit sea. Cart Sa
The story caused some excitement. The find of a large quantity of gold was a fine gift to mankind. Although the heavy metal had long ceased to serve as a symbol of value it was still very necessary in electrical instruments, medicines and, especially, for the manufacture of anameson.
In a small group in a corner outside the verandah sat Veda Kong, Darr Veter, the artist, Chara Nandi and Evda Nahl. Re
‘‘You were right when you said that artists, or rather, art in general, must always inevitably lag behind the rapid advance of knowledge and technique,” said Darr Veter.
‘“You didn’t understand me,” objected Cart Saun. “Art has already corrected its errors and understood its duty to mankind. Art has ceased to create oppressive monumental forms, to depict brilliance and majesty that do not exist in reality, for all that was purely superficial. Art’s most important duty has become the development of man’s emotional side, since only art can rightly attune the human psyche and prepare it for the acceptance of the most complicated impressions. Who does not know how wonderfully easy it is to understand something when you have been pretuned by music, colour or form, and how inaccessible the human spirit is when you try to force a way into it. You historians know better than anybody else how much mankind has suffered through a lack of understanding of the necessity to train and develop the emotional side of the psyche.”
“There was a period in the past when art craved abstract forms,” Veda Kong put in.
“Art craved abstract forms in imitation of the intellect that had gained priority over everything else. Art, however, ca
‘‘What do you believe to be the right track?”
“I believe that art should be a reflection of the struggle and anxieties of life in people’s feelings, at times it should illustrate life but under the control of a common purposefulness. This purposefulness, in other words, is beauty, without which I ca
“I have always wanted art to help conquer and change he world and not merely to sense the world,” added Darr Veter. I “I agree with that, but with one proviso,” said Cart Sa
Evda Nahl placed her strong, warm hand on Darr Veter’s.
“What dream have you renounced today?” At first Veter wanted to put her off, but realized that with Evda equivocation was impossible. And so he pretended to be absorbed in the artist’s discourse.
“Those who have seen the mass art of the past,” continued the artist, “cinema films, recordings of theatre shows, exhibitions of pictures, know how. marvellously refined, elegant, purged of all superfluities our present-day spectacles, dances and pictures seem by contrast. I am not comparing them with the periods of decay, of course.”
“He’s clever but too verbose,” whispered Veda Kong. “It’s difficult for an artist to express in words or formulas those complicated phenomena that he sees and selects from his environment,” Chara Nandi said in his defence and Evda Nahl nodded approvingly.
“What I want to do is something like this,” continued Cart Sa
“The Daughter of Thetis, the Mediterranean, has strongly developed emotions that are fearlessly expansive and infinitely varying; here there is a different degree of the union with nature, through emotions, the power of Eros — that is how I imagine her. The ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, the Cretan, Etruscan, Hellenic and Proto-Indian — gave rise to the type of man who, alone of all others, could have created that civilization that stemmed from the rule of woman. I had the best of luck when I discovered Chara: she is by pure accident a combination of the traits of ancestors from amongst the Graeco-Cretans of antiquity and the later peoples of Central India.”