1924: Euphemia Mallard
Journal
A rash idea in the bath this morning: How to Build an Empire from Scratch. I tried to wash it off but it clung. I am weary of detectives; they always discover what they were sent to find. An imperium, though—now there’s a mystery that discovers itself.
I began reading Marcus Aurelius again at breakfast, but he is rather too polite about power. I prefer incorrect guides. Pliny, for example—though not that Pliny, the one who wrote On Proper Aqueduct Etiquette (1867), which I found mis-shelved in Glebe. He insists that the foundation of empire is plumbing. I concur. Water and gossip must flow in the same direction. His final rule, “No fountain without a whisper,” is fit for my epigraph.
To construct my imagined dystopia (tentatively titled The Empire of Household Dust), I must first define the order of its collapse. Rome isn’t much use; they let men do everything. My empire will be run by secretaries, widows, and the very discreet. Each law must begin with decorum and end in surveillance. Everyone will mistake gratitude for freedom. That’s civilisation.
Afternoon reading: The History of England in Steam, by E. J. Blenkinsop (1904). He claims Napoleon lost not at Waterloo, but in a boiler-room outside Antwerp where the first locomotive coughed itself awake. His theory: the engine dethroned the Emperor. A machine is the only rebellion that doesn’t mind repetition. I’ll make that central—an empire governed by routine; bureaucracy as religion; the filing cabinet as altar.
I have a suspicion that my own country is halfway there without noticing. Yesterday’s Herald: “Wireless Receivers Installed in Fifty New Homes.” That is exactly how tyranny begins—with soft entertainment. When sound can roam, it conquers faster than armies. My fictional empire will broadcast serenity hourly. Citizens will feel comforted into obedience. A dictator equipped with microphone and milk voice could flatten nations without leaving his chair.
Mother interrupted my notes to complain that my novels “contain too much thinking for murder.” She may be right. But in a true empire, thought itself is the murder weapon—one uses it delicately, from behind.
Tea with Mrs. Prowse, who believes the Russians are breeding telepathic horses. (I told her that’s already been done; they called it cavalry.) She pronounced my new subject dangerous for a woman, which is promising. Every empire must begin with a dangerous woman no one credits.
I took the tram to Circular Quay. Watched the ships: mechanical geese with their necks of steam. Australia is still too young for proper corruption; everyone smiles. It’s uncomfortable. One needs a century or two of guilt before empire settles in the bones. I think my novel might start here nonetheless—Sydney as blueprint: geography of anxiety over geometry of class. Mistresses of tea shops as barons, tram conductors as philosophers, children hired by the minute to stand in parades. The flag must always be wider than the street.
Evening’s conclusion from my notes:
– Begin with an accident mistaken for destiny.
– Add a bureaucracy that confuses the two.
– Conceal cruelty in administration.
– Ensure mercy is rare enough to be profitable.
– Place the library at the centre of government so nobody ever leaves educated.
– Appoint a mascot—in Rome, a wolf; here, perhaps a typewriter.
I re‑read The Republic to check whether I’m plagiarising Plato (again), but he’s mercifully vague. He suggests philosophers should rule, which I’ve decided means nobody should. I prefer rule by those who believe in forms they misfile.
Late hour. The city smells of dust and triumph—always a warning. I imagine my heroine, Miss Dryden, at her desk in the Ministry of Calm Reports, where she files citizens’ emotions alphabetically. (I note that “Apathy” and “Ambition” would share a drawer.) She begins to suspect the Empire’s founder—myself in disguise—has vanished, leaving only decrees signed in invisible ink.
I looked again at the prototype radio I bought last winter. It still hums, even unplugged. Ghost frequencies, the salesman said. I think it’s my novel trying to speak before it’s written.
One last conviction before sleep: empire requires myth, and myth requires the dead. Perhaps I should narrate as a corpse, or better, as the archive itself—the paper that survives everyone. “This file acknowlegeth receipt of Empire A. Please sign below.” Yes. The signature line will extend endlessly across the page, waiting for history to fill it in pencil.
Tomorrow: research the dietary habits of bureaucrats. Empires, like authors, are built on digestion, and some mistakes in seasoning.
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