• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 536 0

attested by the history of war and revolution. But before that—before we permit the mask such unbridled diffusion—I think the question is whether we really are broad-minded enough to get along without exercising our instinct to organize sanitary squads. No matter how much we might be fascinated by masks, society would erect stout barricades against individual abuses. For example, the use of the mask in places of employment—public offices, firms, police stations, laboratories—would doubtless be forbidden. Furthermore, as a matter of course popular actors would insist on facial copyrights and start movements against the free production of their masks. To take a more common example, the family: husband and wife would both have to promise not to wear dissimulating masks. A new style of manners would probably evolve for business transactions: before negotiations began, one would have to pinch the skin of the other’s face. In the case of job interviews, the custom of pricking the applicant’s face with a needle and drawing blood to show it was real might well arise. For the police to put a hand on the face in interrogations would be the subject of court cases, to determine whether the act was justified or whether the police had gone too far, and it is conceivable that legal scholars would publish dissertations on the subject.

Day after day, in the “Advice to the Lovelorn” columns of the newspapers, one would read the complaints of women who had been deceived into marriage by a mask—(they would not mention their own). However, the answers would be just as irrelevant and irresponsible: “The insincerity of not once showing his face during the engagement is deplorable. But you are still thinking in terms of a life with a real face. The mask does not deceive and is not deceived. How about putting on a new mask, turning over a new leaf, and starting another life? On these days of masks, we can put on a new look unconcerned with yesterday or tomorrow.” No matter how great the deception, it’s the inconvenience that would be discussed; the pain of deception would never outweigh the pleasure it provided. While there would be many conflicts, the fascination with masks would be predominant.

On balance, of course, some things would be definitely negative. The popularity of detective stories would naturally decline to a shadow, and novels of family affairs dealing with double and triple personalities would be popular for a while; but since the purchasing of masks would occur at the rate of five or more different kinds per person, the resultant complexities of plot would exceed the limits of the readers’ patience. For some the raison d’être of the novel, except for fulfilling the demands of lovers of historical fiction, would possibly disappear. This would not be restricted to novels alone; plays and movies, which fundamentally would be exhibitions of masks, would be peopled with outrageously abstract ciphers that would convey little dramatic interest to the audience. Cosmetic manufacturers would go bankrupt, and one after another the beauty parlors would take down their signs. All the writers’ associations would set up a clamor about the destruction of man by the mask, and beauticians and dermatologists would devote themselves to detailed studies of skin damage caused by masks.

Of course it is extremely doubtful that such actions would have much more effect than temperance pamphlets. Furthermore, Mask Makers, Inc., would already have grown into an enormous monopolistic enterprise, extending its network of ordering, processing, and marketing throughout the country, and would have silenced the mere handful of discontented elements as easily as twisting a baby’s arm.

Problems would doubtless arise eventually; when the use of masks reached a point of saturation and their curiosity and strangeness faded, masks would come to seem commonplace, and people would long more than ever for the feeling of release from complex human relationships. At this time the smell of crime and vice would suddenly become a piercing stench, like that of overripe cheese,