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author: www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> 2025-11-24 07:28:34 -0800
committer: www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> 2025-11-24 07:28:34 -0800
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Memorium | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+    <style>
+
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+/* Transcriber's notes */
+.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA;
+    color: black;
+    font-size:small;
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+/* Illustration classes */
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+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77316 ***</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe26_9375" id="cover600">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/cover600.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<h1>
+Memorium
+</h1>
+
+<p class="center p5">
+by <strong>Basil Wells</strong>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>An old man’s memories may be
+filled with bitterness. But
+faithfully recorded, they may
+change the future of mankind.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><i>Did you ever wonder what would happen if the thoughts of every man,
+woman and child on Earth were set down in black and white for future
+historians to read? Or even present-day historians—or your next door
+neighbor? Could you endure having all of your thoughts laid bare,
+from the cradle to the grave? Wait before you answer. Basil Wells may
+persuade you to change your mind</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<p>“Tell me about Gramr,
+Granthr,” the thin-faced little boy
+demanded. “You promised to tell
+me about my three Gramrs.”</p>
+
+<p>Vance Norall’s attention snapped
+reluctantly back to his visitor. It
+was perhaps not surprising that he
+should have dropped off for a moment.
+At a hundred and thirty such
+a lapse was understandable ... His
+eyes cleared.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, yes. Your great, great
+grandmothers, Ronnie. First of all
+there was Elsie. A lovely woman.
+Tall she was—taller than I, and
+dark. She rode well, swam well—even
+played championship golf.
+There was nothing she could not
+do.”</p>
+
+<p><i>Including lying</i>, his mind wanted
+to add. After her death, when in a
+fit of anger she had driven too
+fast and crashed into a nest of
+highway posts, her memorium tapes
+had been brought to him in the
+hospital where he was recuperating.
+And from the tapes he learned
+what he had never really suspected—that
+her affections were as unstable
+and as unpredictable as her
+golf game was accurate.</p>
+
+<p>She had loved him. The tapes, at
+five year intervals, had confirmed
+that. But in the fifteen years of
+their life together she had had
+many regrettable episodes to recall—times
+when anger or loneliness
+had driven her to seek other companions.</p>
+
+<p>“We were happy, Ronnie. I was
+teaching in an upstate college and
+your Gramr Elsie was touring the
+world collecting trophies. I remember
+seeing her on television talking
+with kings, prime ministers and
+presidents...”</p>
+
+<p>It had been a miserable, lonely
+life for Elsie. The tapes told the
+real truth of those years. Her gay
+letters home had been mainly untruths.
+Yet a hard core of ambition,
+of a hunger for adulation, had
+driven her on. His first hurt anger
+at what her memories had revealed
+had changed to sympathy and pity
+as he came to understand her better.</p>
+
+<p>While the second boy, Arthur,
+was being born he had resigned
+from his instructor’s position and
+gone into business. And Arthur’s
+birth had left Elsie in poor health.
+Her globe-trotting days as an athlete
+and a golfer ended. And in
+rebellion she had struck back at
+him blindly and secretly—childishly.</p>
+
+<p>The last wild ride that had taken
+her life, had almost cost him his
+own, and the will to suicide had
+colored all of her thinking in the
+last long period before that tragic
+event.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course, Ronny, Gramr Elsie
+remained at home after your great
+granthr was born. And after she
+was killed in an automobile crash
+all her trophies were put into a
+case at the Country Club.”</p>
+
+<p>“And after that you married
+Gramr Vivian, and became very
+wealthy, and you built this living
+dome here in Antarctica near the
+mines.” Ronnie smiled gravely.
+“That part I know very well.”</p>
+
+<p>Yes, that part Ronnie knew very
+well. But Ronnie had not known
+the austere efficient nurse, his second
+wife, who had cared for him
+after the accident. She had been
+a dutiful and thoughtful wife—a
+perfect mother to Elsie’s two sons
+and their own three daughters—but
+always there had been a feeling
+of reserve between them. Even
+in their most intimate moments
+she had seemed self-sufficient and
+respectful ...</p>
+
+<p>Only after her death in her
+sleep, when he was sixty and Vivian
+was fifty, had he learned that
+she had a rheumatic heart, and
+should have slackened her headlong
+pace years before. And from
+her memory tapes, sent to him by
+the memorium proctors six months
+after the burial, he learned how
+distorted and cramped had been
+her philosophy of life.</p>
+
+<p>She had hated and disliked all
+men—a silly, slightly sordid romance
+in her girlhood was her
+mental excuse for this attitude. Inwardly
+she shrank from any sign
+of affection, or any physical contact
+with him. Yet she desired
+marriage for the social status and
+monetary independence it afforded.
+Bitterly she had paid the price ...</p>
+
+<p>“Gramr Vivian was an unusual
+woman,” Norall told Ronnie, an
+ironical tone to his surprisingly
+strong old voice. “After she died
+I did not plan to remarry. I spent
+all my time in Antarctica building
+subterranean highways and developing
+mines...”</p>
+
+<p>“Until Gramr Eldris Arovvack,”
+Ronnie rolled the <i>Arovvack</i> on his
+tongue, “came down to visit her
+son in one of your camps.”</p>
+
+<p>“I think you know all this better
+than I do, Ronnie,” Norall said,
+laughing. “Maybe I should tell the
+proctors to destroy my memory
+tapes after I am gone. You will
+not need them.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no, Granthr! It is against
+the law. Only after a hundred
+years without a withdrawal from
+the files can a memorium tape be
+destroyed. I wish to keep in touch
+with you—it will be like talking
+with you again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I see the proctors are doing a
+good job of indoctrination in the
+schools, Ronnie.” Norall sighed.
+“When I was your age, back in
+nineteen-fifty, the universal recordings
+of all citizens’ memories was
+not even imagined.</p>
+
+<p>“That came in the seventies. The
+Communists developed the system
+of brain stripping and recordings
+to weed out subversives and disloyal
+party members. They adapted
+it from our own process of clearing
+a disordered brain, in our mental
+institutions, and giving the individual
+a fresh start with a blank memory.</p>
+
+<p>“By the Twenty-first Century all
+the major nations were keeping
+mental checks on their citizens, and
+eventually even the party leaders,
+much to their horror, were checked
+and removed from office.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know all that, Granthr,” Ronnie
+cried impatiently. “We have it
+in school on ever so many <i>edutapes</i>.
+They say that the memorium is the
+greatest deterrent to crime and
+vicious thinking.</p>
+
+<p>“But I want to hear about the
+olden times—when there were wars
+and singing commercials and big
+ugly cities.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was not so wonderful, Ronnie.
+Today is much nicer, and
+safer. When I was a boy we worshipped
+cowboys and pirates. Today
+it is the G.I. and the city gangster.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell me about how you and
+Gramr Eldris Arovvack were
+caught in the vehicular subway for
+three days after that earthquake,
+Granthr.”</p>
+
+<p>“You know that by heart, Ronnie,”
+Norall protested, “but if you
+insist...”</p>
+
+<p>Eldris Arovvack was in his
+mind’s eye even as his voice went
+on speaking. Eldris, so slight, so
+daintily feminine and so girlishly
+blonde and beautiful despite her
+forty years and her grown engineering
+son. They had been trapped
+together for three days in a subway
+shuttle and he had fallen in love
+despite the twenty-five years between
+their ages.</p>
+
+<p>For her, he had realized, this
+was a marriage of companionship
+and luxury. She had always known
+poverty. His two previous marriages
+had given him an insight
+into why women marry, but so
+deep was his love for Eldris that
+he wanted to be with her under
+any conditions.</p>
+
+<p>And they had been happy. Despite
+the continual gnawing realization
+that only his money and
+position had drawn them together,
+Norall had enjoyed a long sixty-three
+years of life with Eldris.</p>
+
+<p>She had died but two years before...</p>
+
+<p>“Granthr, I think I liked Gramr
+Eldris better than either of my
+other gramrs,” Ronnie was saying.
+“Of course she’s the only gramr I
+knew.”</p>
+
+<p>Norall squeezed the little boy’s
+shoulder, hard.</p>
+
+<p>It had been harder to accept the
+memorium tapes of Eldris than it
+had been to see her body disappear
+into the crematorium. For days he
+had refused to open the small
+sealed packets and insert the tapes
+into the reproducer. He felt that
+he could not endure to contact that
+beloved mind and feel there hatred,
+distaste and hidden foulness that
+humans too well know.</p>
+
+<p>And when, in his great loneliness,
+he finally did renew contact
+with the recorded memories of
+Eldris, he was astounded—and humiliated.</p>
+
+<p>For Eldris, through all the years
+of their marriage, had loved him.
+Her first marriage had ended in
+hatred, yes, and in pity for a weakling,
+but for Norall there was only
+a deepening respect and sincere
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>And he had returned that love
+with a never-ending mistrust and
+cynical suspicion of her motives!</p>
+
+<p>But he was happy now. After
+Ronnie left he would be alone
+again with her memorium tapes.
+Together they would relive the
+long happy years of their marriage.
+He would share her sadness as she
+felt that Norall did not care
+enough and he would feel her joy
+as their grandchildren, and <i>their</i>
+children, came to visit and to be
+married in the old family dome.</p>
+
+<p>He must have been napping for
+the fraction of a second...</p>
+
+<p>“I must go now, Granthr. You
+are tired. Mother says I am not to
+tire you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Come again tomorrow. And
+Ronnie!” His bony arm reached
+out for the boy’s gay blue tunic.
+“After I am gone and you are old
+enough to withdraw my tapes from
+the memorium library and contact
+them—”</p>
+
+<p>He paused, his frail old fingers
+tightening on the fabric.</p>
+
+<p>“Do not think too harshly of me
+and of your other granthrs and
+gramrs. When we were young we
+could not know that after death
+all our thoughts would be laid bare.
+Our parents and our nations did
+not know, and we were fed
+untruths that colored all our lives.”</p>
+
+<p>The little boy’s thin face was
+puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>“Run along,” Norall said softly.
+“Some day you will understand.”</p>
+
+<p>He sent the wheelchair buzzing
+over toward the memorium tapes
+and the soft gray helmet for his
+head even as the door closed behind
+the boy.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="transnote"><h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">Transcriber’s Note:</h2>
+
+<p>This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, March 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 2.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+<p>Obvious errors in punctuation have been silently corrected in this
+version.</p></div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77316 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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author	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2025-11-24 07:28:34 -0800
committer	www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org>	2025-11-24 07:28:34 -0800
commit	840e16447dfefe1eaff0c120082efa0dfd10fc2f (patch)
tree	9e4b77136a617e178bb4283285666e67cbc3ff85 /77316-h