Repeated, too, everywhere, were such creches as the one he now entered.  It was reached by a lift, and by a glass bridge that flung across the dining hall and traversed the ways at a slight upward angle.  To enter the first section of the place necessitated the use of his solvent signature under Asano’s direction.  They were immediately attended to by a man in a violet robe and gold clasp, the insignia of practising medical men.  He perceived from this man’s manner that his identity was known, and proceeded to ask questions on the strange arrangements of the place without reserve.

On either side of the passage, which was silent and padded, as if to deaden the footfall, were narrow little doors, their size and arrangement suggestive of the cells of a Victorian prison.  But the upper portion of each door was of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed him at his awakening, and within, dimly seen, lay, in every case, a very young baby in a little nest of wadding.  Elaborate apparatus watched the atmosphere and rang a bell far away in the central office at the slightest departure from the optimum of temperature and moisture.  A system of such creches had almost entirely replaced the hazardous adventures of the old-world nursing.  The attendant presently called Graham’s attention to the wet nurses, a vista of mechanical figures, with arms, shoulders, and breasts of astonishingly realistic modelling, articulation, and texture, but mere brass tripods below, and having in the place of features a flat disc bearing advertisements likely to be of interest to mothers.

Of all the strange things that Graham came upon that night, none jarred more upon his habits of thought than this place.  The spectacle of the little pink creatures, their feeble limbs swaying uncertainly in vague first movements, left alone, without embrace or endearment, was wholly repugnant to him.  The attendant doctor was of a different opinion.  His statistical evidence showed beyond dispute that in the Victorian times the most dangerous passage of life was the arms of the mother, that there human mortality had ever been most terrible.  On the other hand this creche company, the International Creche Syndicate, lost not one-half per cent, of the million babies or so that formed its peculiar care.  But Graham’s prejudice was too strong even for those figures.

Along one of the many passages of the place they presently came upon a young couple in the usual blue canvas peering through the transparency and laughing hysterically at the bald head of their first-born.  Graham’s face must have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased and they looked abashed.  But this little incident accentuated his sudden realisation of the gulf between his habits of thought and the ways of the new age.  He passed on to the crawling rooms and the Kindergarten, perplexed and distressed.  He found the endless long playrooms were empty! the latter-day children at least still spent their nights in sleep.  As they went through these, the little officer pointed out the nature of the toys, developments of those devised by that inspired sentimentalist Froebel.  There were nurses here, but much was done by machines that sang and danced and dandled.