The strangely inappropriate flowering of culture, so profuse the year before, no longer bloomed. A few invincible enthusiasts, mufflered and raincoated, still bore the icy chill of the concert hall, a quorum of painters besieged the artist supply stores for the precious remaining tubes of burntumber and scarletlake, while it was presumed that in traditionally unheated garrets orthodox poets nourished their muse on pencil erasers. But all enthusiasm was individual property, the reaction of single persons with excess adrenalin. No common interests united doctor and stockbroker, steelworker and truckdriver, laborer and laundryman, except common fear of the Grass, briefly dormant but ever in the background of all minds. The stream of novels, plays, and poems dried up; publishers, amazed that what had been profitable the year before was no longer so, were finally convinced and stopped printing anything remotely literate; even the newspapers limped along crippledly, their presses breaking down hourly, their circulation and coverage alike dubious. The streets were no more safe at night than in sixteenth century London. Even in the greatest cities the lighting was erratic and in the smaller ones it had been abandoned entirely. Holdups by individuals had been practically given up, perhaps because of the uncertainty of any footpad getting away with his loot before being hijacked by another, but small compact gangs made life and property unsafe at night. Tempers were extraordinarily short; a surprised housebreaker was likely to add battery, mayhem and arson to his crimes, and altercations which commonly would have terminated in nothing more violent than lurid epithets now frequently ended in murder. Since too many of the homeless took advantage of the law to commit petty offenses and so secure some kind of shelter for themselves, all law enforcement below the level of capital crimes went by default. Prisoners were tried quickly, often in batches, rarely acquitted; and sentences of death were executed before nightfall so as to conserve both prison space and rations. In rural life the descent was neither so fast nor so far. There was no gasoline to run cars or tractors, but carefully husbanded storagebatteries still provided enough electricity to catch the news on the radio or allow the washingmachine to do the week's laundry. To a great extent the farmer gave up his dependence on manufactured goods, except when he could barter his surplus eggs or milk for them, and instead went back to the practices of his forefather, becoming for all intents and purposes practically selfsufficient. Soap from woodashes and leftover kitchen grease might scratch his skin and a jacket of rabbit or wolverine hide make him selfconscious, but he went neither cold nor hungry nor dirty while his urban counterpart, for the most part, did.