Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett [74]
“Clocks,” said Mr. Saveloy. “We’ve got them in Ankh-Morpork. Only demons evaporate eventually so now they work by—” He paused. “Interesting. You don’t have a word for it. Er. Shaped metal that does work? Toothed wheels?”
The taxman looked frightened. “Wheels with teeth?”
“What do you call the things that grind corn?”
“Peasants.”
“Yes, but what do they grind corn with?”
“I don’t know. Why should I know? Only peasants need to know that.”
“Yes, I suppose that says it all, really,” said Mr. Saveloy sadly.
“It’s a long way off dawn,” said Truckle. “Why don’t we go and kill everyone in their beds?”
“No, no, no!” said Mr. Saveloy. “I keep telling you, we’ve got to do it properly.”
“I could show you the treasure house,” said Six Beneficent Winds helpfully.
“Never a good idea to give a monkey the key to a banana plantation,” said Mr. Saveloy. “Can you think of anything else to keep them amused for an hour?”
Down in the basement, there was a man who was talking about the government. At the top of his voice.
“You can’t fight for a cause! A cause is just a thing!”
“Then we are fighting for the peasants,” said Butterfly. She’d backed away. Rincewind’s anger was coming off him like steam.
“Oh? Have you ever met them?”
“I—have seen them.”
“Oh, good! And what is it you want to achieve?”
“A better life for the people,” said Butterfly coldly.
“You think you having some uprising and hanging a few people will do it? Well, I come from Ankh-Morpork and we’ve had more rebellions and civil wars than you’ve had…lukewarm ducks’ feet, and you know what? The rulers are still in charge! They always are!”
They smiled at him in polite and nervous incomprehension.
“Look,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “All those people out in the fields, the water buffalo people…If you have a revolution it’ll all be better for them, will it?”
“Of course,” said Butterfly. “They will no longer be subject to the cruel and capricious whims of the Forbidden City.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said Rincewind. “So they’ll sort of be in charge of themselves, will they?”
“Indeed,” said Lotus Blossom.
“By means of the People’s Committee,” said Butterfly.
Rincewind pressed both hands to his head.
“My word,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I had this predictive flash!”
They looked impressed.
“I had this sudden feeling,” he went on, “that there won’t be all that many water buffalo string holders on the People’s Committee. In fact…I get this kind of…voice telling me that a lot of the People’s Committee, correct me if I’m wrong, are standing in front of me right now?”
“Initially, of course,” said Butterfly. “The peasants can’t even read and write.”
“I expect they don’t even know how to farm properly,” said Rincewind, gloomily. “Not after doing it for only three or four thousand years.”
“We certainly believe that there are many improvements that could be made, yes,” said Butterfly. “If we act collectively.”
“I bet they’ll be really glad when you show them,” said Rincewind.
He stared glumly at the floor. He quite liked the job of a water buffalo string holder. It sounded nearly as good as the profession of castaway. He longed for the kind of life where you could really concentrate on the squishiness of the mud underfoot, and make up pictures in the clouds; the kind of life where you could let your mind catch up with you and speculate for hours at a time about when your water buffalo was next going to enrich the loam. But it was probably difficult enough as it was without people trying to improve it…
He wanted to say: how can you be so nice and yet so dumb? The best thing you can do with the peasants is leave them alone. Let them get on with it. When people who can read and write start fighting on behalf of people who can’t, you just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them, build a big library or something somewhere and leave the door open.
But this is Hunghung. You can’t think like that in Hunghung. This is where people have learned to do what they