さて、前回呼び出されて会ったきり音信不通だった息子クーノーからメッセージを受け取ったヴァシュティですが、意外にもクーノーは彼女の部屋の近くに住んでいました。
One day she was astonished at receiving a message from her son. They never communicated, having nothing in common, and she had only heard indirectly that he was still alive, and had been transferred from the northern hemisphere, where he had behaved so mischievously, to the southern ―― indeed, to a room not far from her own.
“Does he want me to visit him?” she thought. “Never again, never. And I have not the time.”
No, it was madness of another kind.
He refused to visualize his face upon the blue plate, and speaking out of the darkness with solemnity said:
“The Machine stops.”
“What do you say?”
“The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs.”
She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they spoke no more.
“Can you imagine anything more absurd?” she cried to a friend. “A man who was my son believes that the Machine is stopping. It would be impious if it was not mad.”
“The Machine is stopping?” her friend replied. “What does that mean? The phrase conveys nothing to me.”
“Nor to me.”
“He does not refer, I suppose, to the trouble there has been lately with the music?”
“Oh no, of course not. Let us talk about music.”
“Have you complained to the authorities?”
“Yes, and they say it wants mending, and referred me to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus. I complained of those curious gasping sighs that disfigure the symphonies of the Brisbane school. They sound like some one in pain. The Committee of the Mending Apparatus say that it shall be remedied shortly.”
クーノーのメッセージは、地上に出ることよりもっと恐ろしい別の狂気をはらんだ「マシーンが止まる（The Machine stops.）」でした。
ええ。クーノーにはその兆候がわかるらしいわ。ヴァシュティや彼女の友人は最近起こっている不具合（the trouble there has been lately）について、マシーンとの関連を疑ることはなかったようね。
Obscurely worried, she resumed her life. For one thing, the defect in the music irritated her. For another thing, she could not forget Kuno’s speech. If he had known that the music was out of repair ―― he could not know it, for he detested music ―― if he had known that it was wrong, “the Machine stops” was exactly the venomous sort of remark he would have made. Of course he had made it at a venture, but the coincidence annoyed her, and she spoke with some petulance to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus.
They replied, as before, that the defect would be set right shortly.
“Shortly! At once!” she retorted. “Why should I be worried by imperfect music? Things are always put right at once. If you do not mend it at once, I shall complain to the Central Committee.”
“No personal complaints are received by the Central Committee,” the Committee of the Mending Apparatus replied.
“Through whom am I to make my complaint, then?”
“Through us.”
“I complain then.”
“Your complaint shall be forwarded in its turn.”
“Have others complained?”
This question was unmechanical, and the Committee of the Mending Apparatus refused to answer it.
“It is too bad!” she exclaimed to another of her friends.
“There never was such an unfortunate woman as myself. I can never be sure of my music now. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it.”
“What is it?”
“I do not know whether it is inside my head, or inside the wall.”
“Complain, in either case.”
“I have complained, and my complaint will be forwarded in its turn to the Central Committee.”
変な音が入り込む音楽についてのヴァシュティの苦情は、修理装置委員会に申し立てをしても、修理してもらえることもなさそうです。彼女の友人も頭の中でなっているのか、壁の中なのかわからない雑音に悩まされているし（I do not know whether it is inside my head, or inside the wall）・・・。
Time passed, and they resented the defects no longer. The defects had not been remedied, but the human tissues in that latter day had become so subservient, that they readily adapted themselves to every caprice of the Machine. The sigh at the crises of the Brisbane symphony no longer irritated Vashti; she accepted it as part of the melody. The jarring noise, whether in the head or in the wall, was no longer resented by her friend. And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit, all were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from bad to worse unchallenged.
It was otherwise with the failure of the sleeping apparatus. That was a more serious stoppage. There came a day when over the whole world ―― in Sumatra, in Wessex, in the innumerable cities of Courland and Brazil ―― the beds, when summoned by their tired owners, failed to appear. It may seem a ludicrous matter, but from it we may date the collapse of humanity. The Committee responsible for the failure was assailed by complainants, whom it referred, as usual, to the Committee of the Mending Apparatus, who in its turn assured them that their complaints would be forwarded to the Central Committee. But the discontent grew, for mankind was not yet sufficiently adaptable to do without sleeping.
“Some one of meddling with the Machine—” they began.
“Some one is trying to make himself king, to reintroduce the personal element.”
“Punish that man with Homelessness.”
“To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!”
“War! Kill the man!”
But the Committee of the Mending Apparatus now came forward, and allayed the panic with well-chosen words. It confessed that the Mending Apparatus was itself in need of repair.
The effect of this frank confession was admirable.
時がたつについれて、だれもさまざまな不具合に腹が立たなくなってしまったようです。 マシーンの生活を続けてきた人間は、すっかり従順（subservient）になってしまったの。
人工のくだものにかびが生えても、お風呂の水が臭くても、詩を作る機械が脚韻を間違っても、だれも苦情を言わなくなってしまった。（And so with the mouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with the defective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit, all were bitterly complained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things went from bad to worse unchallenged.）
それでも人間たちは、マシーンのせいだとは思わないで犯人捜しをしています。
「戦争だ！犯人を殺せ！（“War! Kill the man!”）」悪いのは、だれなのか分からない、自分には「みえない」人間なのね。
“Of course,” said a famous lecturer–he of the French Revolution, who gilded each new decay with splendour ――”of course we shall not press our complaints now. The Mending Apparatus has treated us so well in the past that we all sympathize with it, and will wait patiently for its recovery. In its own good time it will resume its duties. Meanwhile let us do without our beds, our tabloids, our other little wants. Such, I feel sure, would be the wish of the Machine.”
Thousands of miles away his audience applauded. The Machine still linked them. Under the seas, beneath the roots of the mountains, ran the wires through which they saw and heard, the enormous eyes and ears that were their heritage, and the hum of many workings clothed their thoughts in one garment of subserviency. Only the old and the sick remained ungrateful, for it was rumoured that Euthanasia, too, was out of order, and that pain had reappeared among men.
It became difficult to read. A blight entered the atmosphere and dulled its luminosity. At times Vashti could scarcely see across her room. The air, too, was foul. Loud were the complaints, impotent the remedies, heroic the tone of the lecturer as he cried: “Courage! courage! What matter so long as the Machine goes on? To it the darkness and the light are one.” And though things improved again after a time, the old brilliancy was never recaptured, and humanity never recovered from its entrance into twilight. There was an hysterical talk of “measures,” of “provisional dictatorship,” and the inhabitants of Sumatra were asked to familiarize themselves with the workings of the central power station, the said power station being situated in France. But for the most part panic reigned, and men spent their strength praying to their Books, tangible proofs of the Machine’s omnipotence. There were gradations of terror ―― at times came rumours of hope ―― the Mending Apparatus was almost mended ―― the enemies of the Machine had been got under ―― new “nerve-centres” were evolving which would do the work even more magnificently than before. But there came a day when, without the slightest warning, without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire communication-system broke down, all over the world, and the world, as they understood it, ended.
完璧だったマシーンの故障によって、次第に「苦痛」が忍び込んでくるようになりましたぞ。自由に死ぬこともできない、明かりがくもってしまい、本も読むことができない、 さまざまな度合いの恐怖が支配するようになってきたんですな。
予告もなしに、世界中の伝達システムが完全に故障した（without any previous hint of feebleness, the entire communication-system broke down, all over the world）、と・・・そりゃ、えらいこっちゃ、ですわ！