Chapter II: Part 2

We stopped in front of a mirror. At that moment I saw only her eyes. An idea came to me: human beings are built as nonsensically as these stupid "apartments," human heads are opaque, and there are only two very small windows that lead inside,--the eyes. She seemed to have guessed my thoughts; she turned around: "Well, here they are, my eyes,--well" (this suddenly, then silence).

There were in front of me two gloomy dark windows and behind them inside, such strange hidden life. I saw there only fire, burning like a peculiar "fireplace" and unknown figures resembling....

All this was certainly very natural; I saw in her eyes the reflection of my own face. But my feelings were unnatural and not like me. Evidently the depressing influence of the surroundings was beginning to tell on me. I felt definitely fear. I felt as if I were trapped and caged in a strange cage. I felt that I was caught in the wild hurricane of ancient life.

"Do you know ..." said I-330, "step out for a moment into the next room." Her voice came from there,--from inside, from behind the dark window-eyes,--where the fireplace was blazing.

I went out, sat down. From a shelf on the wall there looked straight into my face, somewhat smiling, a snub-nosed, asymmetrical physiognomy of one of the ancient poets; I think it was Pushkin.

"Why do I sit here enduring this smile with such resignation and what is this all about? Why am I here? And why all these strange sensations, this irritating, repellent female, this strange game?"

The door of the closet slammed; there was the rustle of silk. I felt it difficult to restrain myself from getting up and, and.... I don't remember exactly; probably I wanted to tell her a number of disagreeable things. But she had already appeared.

She was dressed in a short bright-yellowish dress, black hat, black stockings. The dress was of light silk,--I saw clearly very long black stockings above the knees, an uncovered neck and the shadow between....

"It's clear that you want to seem original. But is it possible that you--?"

"It is clear," interrupted I-330, "that to be original means to stand out among others; consequently to be original means to violate the law of equality. What was called in the language of the ancients 'to be common' is with us only the fulfilling of one's duty. For--"

"Yes, yes, exactly," I interrupted impatiently, "and there is no use, no use...."

She came near the bust of the snub-nosed poet, lowered the curtains on the wild fire of her eyes and said, this time I think she was really in earnest, or perhaps she merely wanted to soften my impatience with her, but she said a very reasonable thing:

"Don't you think it surprising that once people could stand types like this? Not only stand them but worship them. What a slavish spirit, don't you think so?"

"It's clear ... that is...!" I wanted ... (damn that cursed "it's clear!").

"Oh, yes, I understand. But in fact these were rulers stronger than the crowned ones. Why were they not isolated and exterminated? In our State--"

"Oh, yes, in our State--" I began.

Suddenly she laughed. I saw the laughter in her eyes. I saw the resounding sharp curve of that laughter, flexible, tense like a whip. I remember my whole body shivered. I thought of grasping her ... and I don't know what.... I had to do something, mattered little what; automatically I looked at my golden badge, glanced at my watch,--ten minutes to seventeen!

"Don't you think it is time to go?" I said in as polite a tone as possible.

"And if I should ask you to stay here with me?"

"What? Do you realize what you are saying? In ten minutes I must be in the auditorium."

"And 'all the Numbers must take the prescribed courses in art and science'," said I-330 with my voice.

Then she lifted the curtain, opened her eyes,--through the dark windows the fire was blazing.

"I have a physician in the Medical Bureau; he is registered to me; if I ask him, he will give you a certificate declaring that you are ill. All right?"

Understood! At last I understood where this game was leading.

"Ah, so! But you know that every honest Number as a matter of course must immediately go to the office of the Guardians and--"

"And as a matter not of course?" (Sharp smile-bite) "I am very curious to know; will you or will you not go to the Guardians?"

"Are you going to remain here?"

I grasped the knob of the door. It was a brass knob, a cold, brass knob and I heard, cold like brass, her voice:

"Just a minute, may I?"

She went to the telephone, called a Number,--I was so upset it escaped me,--and spoke loudly: "I shall be waiting for you in the Ancient House. Yes, yes, alone."

I turned the cold brass knob.

"May I take the aero?"

"Oh yes, certainly, please!"

In the sunshine at the gate the old woman was dozing like a plant. Again I was surprised to see her grown-together mouth open, and to hear her say:

"And your lady, did she remain alone?"

"Alone."

The mouth of the old woman grew together again; she shook her head; apparently even her weakening brain understood the stupidity and the danger of the behaviour of that woman.

At seventeen o'clock exactly, I was at the lecture. There I suddenly realized that I did not tell the whole truth to the old woman. I-330 was not there alone _now_. Possibly this fact, that I involuntarily told the old woman a lie, was torturing me now and distracting my attention. Yes, not alone,--that was the point.

After twenty-one-thirty o'clock I had a free hour. I could therefore have gone to the office of the Guardians to make my report; but after that stupid adventure I was so tired--besides, the law provides two days. I shall have time tomorrow; I have another twenty-four hours.

RECORD SEVEN

An Eyelash
Taylor
Henbane and Lily of the Valley

Night. Green, orange, blue. The red royal instrument. The yellow dress. Then a brass Buddha. Suddenly it lifted the brass eyelids and sap began to flow from it, from Buddha. Sap also from the yellow dress. Even in the mirror,--drops of sap, and from the large bed and from the children's bed and soon from myself.... It is horror, mortally sweet horror!...

I woke up. Soft blue light, the glass of the walls, of the chairs, of the table was glimmering. This calmed me. My heart stopped palpitating. Sap! Buddha! How absurd! I am sick, it is clear; I never saw dreams before. They say that to see dreams was a common normal thing with the ancients. Yes, after all, their life was a whirling carousel: green, orange, Buddha, sap,--but we, people of today, we know all too well that dreaming is a serious mental disease. I.... Is it possible that _my_ brain, this precise, clean, glittering mechanism, like a chronometer without a speck of dust on it, is...? Yes it is, now. I really feel there in the brain some foreign body like an eyelash in the eye. One does not feel one's whole body but this eye with a hair in it, one cannot forget it for a second....

The cheerful, crystalline sound of the bell at my head. Seven o'clock. Time to get up. To the right and to the left as in mirrors, to the right and to the left through the glass walls I see others like myself, other rooms like my own, other clothes like my own, movements like mine, duplicated thousands of times. This invigorates me; I see myself as a part of an enormous, vigorous, united body; and what precise beauty! Not a single superfluous gesture, or bow, or turn. Yes, this Taylor was undoubtedly the greatest genius of the ancients. True, he did not come to the idea of applying his method to the whole life, to every step throughout the twenty-four hours of the day; he was unable to integrate his system from one o'clock to twenty-four. I cannot understand the ancients. How could they write whole libraries about some Kant and take notice only slightly of Taylor, of this prophet who saw ten centuries ahead?

Breakfast was over. The hymn of the United State had been harmoniously sung; rhythmically, four abreast we walked to the elevators, the motors buzzed faintly and swiftly we went down--down--down, the heart sinking slightly. Again that stupid dream or some unknown function of that dream. Oh, yes! Yesterday in the aero, then down--down! Well, it is all over, anyhow. Period. It is very fortunate that I was so firm and brusque with her.

The car of the underground railway carried me swiftly to the place where the motionless, beautiful body of the _Integral_, not yet spiritualized by fire, was glittering in the docks in the sunshine. With closed eyes I dreamed in formulae. Again I calculated in my mind what was the initial velocity required to tear away the _Integral_ from the earth. Every second the mass of the _Integral_ would change because of the expenditure of the explosive fuel. The equation was very complex with transcendant figures. As in a dream I felt, right here in the firm calculated world, how someone sat down at my side, barely touching me and saying, "Pardon." I opened my eyes. At first, apparently because of an association with the _Integral_, I saw something impetuously flying into the distance: a head; I saw pink wing-ears sticking out on the sides of it, then the curve of the overhanging back of the head, the double-curved letter S.

Through the glass walls of my algebraic world, again I felt the eyelash in my eye. I felt something disagreeable, I felt that today I must....

"Certainly, please,"--I smiled at my neighbor and bowed.

Number S-4711 I saw glittering on his golden badge (that is why I associated him with the letter S from the very first moment: an optical impression which remained unregistered by consciousness). His eyes sparkled, two sharp little drills; they were revolving swiftly, drilling in deeper and deeper. It seemed that in a moment they would drill in to the bottom and would see something that I do not even dare to confess to myself....

That bothersome eyelash became wholly clear to me. S- was one of them, one of the Guardians, and it would be the simplest thing immediately, without deferring to tell him everything!

"I went yesterday to the Ancient House ..." my voice was strange, husky, flat,--I tried to cough.

"That is good. It must have given you material for some instructive deductions."

"Yes ... but ... You see, I was not alone; I was in the company of I-330, and then...."

"I-330? You are fortunate. She is a very interesting, gifted woman; she has a host of admirers."

But he too--then during the promenade.... Perhaps he is even assigned as her he-Number! No, it is impossible to tell him, unthinkable. This was perfectly clear.

"Yes, yes, certainly, very," I smiled, broader and broader, more stupidly, and felt as if my smile made me look foolish, naked.

The drills reached the bottom; revolving continually they screwed themselves back into his eyes. S- smiled double-curvedly, nodded and slid to the exit.

I covered my face with the newspaper (I felt as if everybody were looking at me), and soon I forgot about the eyelash, about the little drills, about everything, I was so upset by what I read in the paper: "According to authentic information, traces of an organization which still remains out of reach, have again been discovered. This organization aims at liberation from the beneficial yoke of the State."

Liberation! It is remarkable how persistent human criminal instincts are! I use deliberately the word "criminal," for freedom and crime are as closely related as--well, as the movement of an aero and its speed: if the speed of an aero equals zero, the aero is motionless; if human liberty is equal to zero, man does not commit any crime. That is clear. The way to rid man of criminality is to rid him of freedom. No sooner did we rid ourselves of freedom (in the cosmic sense centuries are only a "no sooner"), than suddenly some unknown pitiful degenerates.... No, I cannot understand why I did not go immediately yesterday to the Bureau of the Guardians. Today, after sixteen o'clock, I shall go there without fail.

At sixteen-ten I was in the street; at once I noticed O-90 at the corner; she was all rosy with delight at the encounter. She has a simple, round mind. A timely meeting; she would understand and lend me support. Or, ... no, I did not need any support; my decision was firm.

The pipes of the Musical Tower thundered out harmoniously the March--the same daily March. How wonderful the charm of this dailiness, of this constant repetition and mirror-like smoothness!

"Out for a walk?" Her round blue eyes opened toward me widely, blue windows leading inside; I penetrate there unhindered; there is nothing in there, I mean nothing foreign, nothing superfluous.

"No, not for a walk. I must go." I told her where. And to my astonishment I saw her rosy round mouth form a crescent with the horns downward as if she tasted something sour. This angered me.

"You she-Numbers seem to be incurably eaten up by prejudices. You are absolutely unable to think abstractly. Forgive me the word but this I call bluntness of mind."

"You? ... to the spies? How ugly! And I went to the Botanical Garden and brought you a branch of lily-of-the-valley...."

"Why, 'and I'? Why this 'and'? Just like a woman!"

Angrily (this I must confess), I snatched the flowers. "Here they are, your lilies-of-the-valley. Well, smell them! Good? Yes? Why not use a little bit of logic? The lilies-of-the-valley smell good; all right! But you cannot say about an odor, about the conception of an odor, that it _is_ good or bad, can you? You can't, can you? There is the smell of lilies-of-the-valley and there is the disagreeable smell of henbane. Both are odors. The ancient States had their spies; we have ours ... yes, spies! I am not afraid of words. But is it not clear to you that there the spies were henbane; here they are lilies-of-the-valley? Yes, lilies-of-the-valley, yes!"

The rosy crescent quivered. Now I understand that it was only my impression but at that moment I was certain she was going to laugh. I shouted still louder:

"Yes, lilies-of-the-valley! And there is nothing funny about it, nothing funny!"

The smooth round globes of heads passing by were turning towards us. O-90 gently took my hand.

"You are so strange today ... are you ill?"

My dream.... Yellow color.... Buddha.... It was at once born clearly upon me that I must go to the Medical Bureau.

"Yes, you are right, I am sick," I said with joy (that seems to me an inexplicable contradiction; there was nothing to be joyful about).

"You must go at once to the doctor. You understand that; you are obliged to be healthy; it seems strange to have to prove it to you."

"My dear O-, of course you are right. Absolutely right."

I did not go to the Bureau of the Guardians; I could not; I had to go to the Medical Bureau; they kept me there until seventeen o'clock.

In the evening (incidentally, the Bureau of Guardians is closed evenings)--in the evening O- came to see me. The curtains were not lowered. We busied ourselves with the arithmetical problems of an ancient text-book. This occupation always calms and purifies our thoughts. O- sat over her note book, her head slightly inclined to the left; she was so assiduous that she poked out her left cheek with the tongue from within. She looked so child-like, so charming.... I felt everything in me was pleasant, precise and simple.

She left. I remained alone. I breathed deeply two times (it is very good exercise before retiring for the night). Suddenly,--an unexpected odor reminiscent of something very disagreeable! I soon found out what was the matter: a branch of lily-of-the-valley was hidden in my bed. Immediately everything was aroused again, came up from the bottom. Decidedly, it was tactless on her part surreptitiously to put these lilies-of-the-valley there. Well, true I did not go; I didn't, but was it my fault that I felt indisposed?

RECORD EIGHT

An Irrational Root
R-13
The Triangle

It was long ago during my school-days, when I first encountered the square-root of minus one. I remember it all very clearly; a bright globe-like class hall, about a hundred round heads of children and Plappa--our mathematician. We nicknamed him Plappa; it was a very much used-up mathematician, loosely screwed together; as the member of the class who was on duty that day would be putting the plug into the socket behind we would hear at first from the megaphone, "Plap-plap-plap-plap--tshshsh...." Only then the lesson would follow. One day Plappa told us about irrational numbers, and I remember I wept and banged the table with my fist and cried, "I do not want that square-root of minus one; take that square-root of minus one away!" This irrational root grew into me as something strange, foreign, terrible; it tortured me; it could not be thought out. It could not be defeated because it was beyond reason.

Now that square-root of minus one is here again. I read over what I have written and I clearly see that I was insincere with myself, that I lied to myself in order to avoid seeing that square-root of minus one. My sickness, etc., is all nonsense; _I could go there_. I feel sure that if such a thing had happened a week ago I should have gone without hesitating. Why then am I unable to go now?... Why?

Today, for instance, at exactly sixteen-ten I stood before the glittering Glass Wall. Above was the shining, golden, sun-like sign: "Bureau of Guardians." Inside, a long queue of bluish-gray unifs awaiting their turns, faces shining like the oil lamps in an ancient temple. They came to accomplish a great thing: they came to put on the altar of the United State their beloved ones, their friends, their own selves. My whole being craved to join them, yet ... I could not; my feet were as though melted into the glass plates of the sidewalk. I simply stood there looking foolish.

"Heh, mathematician! Dreaming?"

I shivered. Black eyes varnished with laughter looked at me,--thick negro lips! It was my old friend the poet, R-13, and with him rosy O-. I turned around angrily (I still believe that if they had not appeared I should have entered the Bureau and have torn the square-root of minus one out of my flesh).

"Not dreaming at all; if you will, 'standing in adoration'," I retorted quite brusquely.

"Oh, certainly, certainly! You, my friend, should never have become a mathematician; you should have become a poet, a great poet! Yes, come over to our trade, to the poets. Heh? If you will, I can arrange it in a jiffy. Heh?"

R-13 usually talks very fast: His words run in torrents, his thick lips sprinkle. Every P is a fountain, every "poets" a fountain.

"So far I have served knowledge, and I shall continue to serve knowledge."

I frowned. I do not like, I do not understand jokes, and R-13 has the bad habit of joking.

"Heh, to the deuce with knowledge. Your much-heralded knowledge is but a form of cowardice. It is a fact! Yes, you want to encircle the infinite with a wall and you fear to cast a glance behind the wall. Yes, sir! And if ever you should glance beyond the wall you would be dazzled and close your eyes,--yes,--"

"Walls are the foundation of every human--" I began.

R-13 sprinkled his fountain. O- laughed rosily and roundly. I waved my hand: "Well, you may laugh, I don't care." I was busy with something else. I had to find a way of eating up, of crushing down, that square-root of minus one. "Suppose," I offered, "we go to my place and do some arithmetical problems." (The quiet hour of yesterday afternoon came to my memory; perhaps today also....)

O- glanced at R-, then serenely and roundly at me; the soft, endearing color of our pink checks came to her cheeks.

"But today I am.... I have a check to him today." (A glance at R-.) "And tonight he is busy, so that--"

The moist varnished lips whispered good-naturedly: "Half an hour is plenty for us, is it not, O-? I am not a great lover of your problems; let us simply go over to my place and chat."

I was afraid to remain alone with myself, or to be more correct, with that new strange self, who by some curious coincidence bore my number, D-503. So I went with R-. True, he is not precise, not rhythmic, his logic is jocular and turned inside out, yet we are.... Three years ago we both chose our dear, rosy O-. This tied our friendship more firmly together than our school-days did. In R-'s room everything seems like mine; the Tables, the glass of the chairs, the table, the closet, the bed. But as we entered, R- moved one chair out of place, then another,--the room became confused, everything lost the established order and seemed to violate every rule of Euclid's geometry. R- remained the same as before; in Taylor and in mathematics he always lagged at the tail of the class.

We recalled Plappa, how we boys used to paste the whole surface of his glass legs with paper notes expressing our thanks (we all loved Plappa). We recalled our priest (it goes without saying that we were taught not the "law" of ancient religion but the law of the United State). Our priest had a very powerful voice; a real hurricane would come out of the megaphone. And we children would yell the prescribed texts after him with all our lung-power. We recalled how our scapegrace, R-13, used to stuff the priest with chewed paper; every word was thus accompanied by a paper wad shot out. Naturally, R- was punished, for what he did was undoubtedly wrong, but now we laughed heartily;--by we I mean our triangle, R-, O-, and I, I must confess, I too.

"And what if he had been a living one? Like the ancient ones, heh?" We'd have b... b..., a fountain running from the fat bubbling lips. The sun was shining through the ceiling, the sun above, the sun from the sides, its reflection from below. O- on R-13's lap and minute drops of sunlight in O-'s blue eyes. Somehow my heart warmed up. The square-root of minus one became silent and motionless....

"Well, how is your _Integral_? Will you soon hop off to enlighten the inhabitants of the planets? You'd better hurry up, my boy, or we poets will have produced such a devilish lot that even your _Integral_ will be unable to lift the cargo. 'Every day from eight to eleven' ..." R- wagged his head and scratched the back of it. The back of his head is square; it looks like a little valise (I recalled for some reason an ancient painting "In the Cab"). I felt more lively.

"You too are writing for the _Integral_? Tell me about it. What are you writing about? What did you write today, for instance?"

"Today I did not write; today I was busy with something else." "B-b-busy" sprinkled straight into my face.

"What else?"

R- frowned. "What? What? Well, if you insist I'll tell you. I was busy with the Death Sentence. I was putting the Death Sentence into verse. An idiot--and to be frank, one of our poets.... For two years we all lived side by side with him and nothing seemed wrong. Suddenly he went crazy. 'I,' said he, 'am a genius! And I am above the law.' All that sort of nonsense.... But it is not a thing to talk about."

The fat lips hung down. The varnish disappeared from the eyes. He jumped up, turned around and stared through the wall. I looked at his tightly closed little "valise" and thought, "What is he handling in his little valise now?"

A moment of awkward asymmetric silence. I could not see clearly what was the matter but I was certain there was something....

"Fortunately the antediluvian time of those Shakespeares and Dostoyevskis (or what were their names?) is past," I said in a voice deliberately loud.

R- turned his face to me. Words sprinkled and bubbled out of him as before, but I thought I noticed there was no more joyful varnish to his eyes.

"Yes, dear mathematician, fortunately, fortunately. We are the happy arithmetical mean. As you would put it, the integration from zero to infinity, from imbeciles to Shakespeare. Do I put it right?"

I do not know why (it seemed to me absolutely uncalled for) I recalled suddenly the other one, _her_ tone. A thin invisible thread stretched between her and R- (what thread?). The square-root of minus one began to bother me again. I glanced at my badge; sixteen-twenty-five o'clock! They had only thirty-five minutes for the use of the pink check.

"Well, I must go." I kissed O-, shook hands with R- and went to the elevator.

As I crossed the avenue I turned around. Here and there in the huge mass of glass penetrated by sunshine there were grayish-blue squares, the opaque squares of lowered curtains,--the squares of rhythmic, Taylorized happiness. On the seventh floor I found R-13's square. The curtains were already lowered.

Dear O-.... Dear R-.... He also has (I do not know why I write this "also," but I write as it comes from my pen), he too has something which is not entirely clear in him. Yet I, he and O-, we are a triangle; I confess, not an isosceles triangle but a triangle nevertheless. We, to speak in the language of our ancestors (perhaps to you, my planetary readers, this is the more comprehensible language) we are a family. And one feels so good at times, when one is able for a short while, at least, to close oneself within a firm triangle, to close oneself away from anything that....

RECORD NINE

Liturgy
Iambus
The Cast-Iron Hand

A solemn bright day. On such days one forgets one's weaknesses, inexactitudes, illnesses, and everything is crystalline and imperturbable like our new glass....

The Plaza of the Cube. Sixty-six imposing concentric circles--stands. Sixty-six rows of quiet serene faces. Eyes reflecting the shining of the sky,--or perhaps it is the shining of the United State. Red like blood, are the flowers--the lips of the women. Like soft garlands the faces of the children in the first rows, nearest the place of action. Profound, austere, gothic silence.

To judge by the descriptions which reach us from the ancients, they felt somewhat like this during their "Church services," but they served their nonsensical unknown god; we serve our rational god, whom we most thoroughly know. Their god gave them nothing but eternal, torturing seeking; our god gives us absolute truth, that is, he has rid us of any kind of doubt. Their god did not invent anything cleverer than sacrificing oneself, nobody knows what for; we bring to our god, The United State, a quiet, rational, carefully thought-out sacrifice.

Yes, it was a solemn liturgy for the United State, a reminiscence of the great days, years, of the Two Hundred Years' War,--a magnificent celebration of the victory of _all_ over _one_, of the _sum_ over the individual!

That _one_ stood on the steps of the Cube which was filled with sunlight. A white, no not even white, but already colorless glass face, lips of glass. And only the eyes--thirsty, swallowing, black holes leading into that dreadful world from which he was only a few minutes away. The golden badge with the number already had been taken off. His hands were tied with a red ribbon. (A symbol of ancient custom. The explanation of it is that in the old times when this sort of thing was not done in the name of the United State, the convicted naturally considered that they had the right to resist, hence their hands were usually bound with chains.)

On the top of the Cube, next to the Machine, the motionless, metallic figure of him whom we call the Well-Doer. One could not see his face from below. All one could see was that it was bounded by austere, magnificent, square lines. And his hands.... Did you ever notice how sometimes in a photograph the hands, if they were too near the camera, come out enormous? They then compel your attention, overshadow everything else. Those hands of his, heavy hands, quiet for the time being, were stony hands,--it seemed the knees on which they rested must have had pains to bear their weight.

Suddenly one of those hands rose slowly. A slow cast-iron gesture; obeying the will of the lifted hand, a Number came out on the platform. It was one of the State poets, whose fortunate lot it was to crown our celebration with his verses.

Divine iambic brass verses thundered over the many stands. They dealt with the man, who, his reason lost and lips like glass, stood on the steps and waited for the logical consequences of his own insane deeds.

... A blaze.... Buildings were swaying in those iambic lines, and sprinkling upward their liquified golden substance, they broke and fell. The green trees were scorched, their sap slowly ran out and they remained standing like black crosses, like skeletons. Then appeared Prometheus (that meant _us_).

"... he harnessed fire
With machines and steel
And fettered chaos with Law...."

The world was renovated; it became like steel,--a sun of steel, trees of steel, men of steel. Suddenly an insane man, "Unchained the fire and set it free," and again the world had perished.... Unfortunately I have a bad memory for poetry, but one thing I am sure of: one could not choose more instructive or more beautiful parables.

Another slow, heavy gesture of the cast-iron hand and another poet appeared on the steps of the Cube. I stood up! Impossible! But ... thick negro lips,--it _was_ he. Why did he not tell me that he was to be invested with such high.... His lips trembled; they were gray. Oh, I certainly understood; to be face to face with the Well-Doer, face to face with the hosts of Guardians! Yet one should not allow oneself to be so upset.

Swift sharp verses like an axe.... They told about an unheard-of crime, about sacrilegious poems in which the Well-Doer was called.... But no, I do not dare to repeat....

R-13 was pale when he finished, and looking at no one (I did not expect such bashfulness of him) he descended and sat down. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second I saw right beside him somebody's face--a sharp, black triangle--and instantly I lost it; my eyes, thousands of eyes, were directed upward toward the Machine. Then--again the superhuman, cast-iron, gesture of the hand.

Swayed by an unknown wind the criminal moved; one step ... one more, ... then the last step in his life. His face was turned to the sky, his head thrown backward--he was on his last.-- ... Heavy, stony like fate, the Well-Doer went around the machine, put his enormous hand on the lever.... Not a whisper, not a breath around; all eyes were upon that hand.... What crushing, scorching power one must feel to be the tool, to be the resultant of hundreds of thousands of wills! How great his lot!

Another second. The hand moved down, switching in the current. The lightning-sharp blade of the electric ray.... A faint crack like a shiver, in the tubes of the Machine.... The prone body, covered with a light phosphorescent smoke; then suddenly, under the eyes of all, it began to melt,--to melt, to dissolve with terrible speed. And then nothing; just a pool of chemically pure water which only a moment ago was so red and pulsated in his heart....

All this was simple; all of us were familiar with the phenomenon, dissociation of matter,--yes, the splitting of the atoms of the human body! Yet every time we witnessed it, it seemed a miracle; it was a symbol of the superhuman power of the Well-Doer.

Above, in front of Him, the burning faces of the female numbers, mouths half open from emotion, flowers swaying in the wind.[2] According to custom, ten women were covering with flowers the unif of the Well-Doer, which was still wet with spray. With the magnificent step of a supreme priest He slowly descended, slowly passed between the rows of stands; and like tender white branches there rose toward Him the arms of the women; and, millions like one, our tempestuous cheers! Then cheers in honor of the Guardians, who all unseen, were present among us.... Who knows, perhaps the fancy of the ancient man foresaw them centuries ahead, when he created the gentle and formidable "guardian-angels" assigned to each one from the day of his birth?

[2] These flowers naturally were brought from the Botanical Museum. I, personally, am unable to see anything beautiful in flowers, or in anything else that belongs to the lower kingdom which now exists only beyond the Green Wall. Only rational and useful things are beautiful: machines, boots, formulae, food, etc.

Yes, there was in our celebration something of the ancient religions, something purifying like a storm.... You whose lot it may be to read this, are you familiar with such emotions? I am sorry for you if you are not.

RECORD TEN

A Letter
A Manhunt
Hairy I

Yesterday was for me a kind of filter-paper which chemists use for filtering their solutions (all suspended and superfluous particles remain on the paper). This morning I went downstairs all purified and distilled, transparent.

Downstairs in the hall the controller sat at a small table, constantly looking at her watch and recording the Numbers who were leaving. Her name is U- ... well, I prefer not to give her Number, for I fear I may not write kindly about her. Although, as a matter of fact, she is a very respectable, mature woman. The only thing I do not like in her is that her cheeks fold down a little like gills of a fish (although I do not see anything wrong in this appearance). She scratched with her pen and I saw on the page "D-503"--and suddenly, splash! an ink-blot. No sooner did I open my mouth to call her attention to that, than she raised her head and blotted me with an inky smile. "There is a letter for you. You will receive it, dear. Yes, yes, you will."

I knew a letter, after she had read it, must go through the Bureau of the Guardians (I think it is unnecessary to explain in detail this natural order of things); I would receive it not later than twelve o'clock. But that tiny smile confused me; the drop of ink clouded the transparency of the distilled solution. At the dock of the _Integral_ I could not concentrate; I even made a mistake in my calculations,--that never happened to me before.

At twelve o'clock, again the rosy-brown fish-gills' smile, and at last the letter was in my hands. I cannot say why I did not read it right there, but I put it in my pocket and ran into my room. I opened it and glanced it over and ... and sat down. It was the official notification advising me that Number I-330 had had me assigned to her and that today at twenty-one o'clock, I was to go to her. Her address was given.

"No! After all that happened! After I showed her frankly my attitude toward her! Besides, how could she know that I did not go to the Bureau of the Guardians? She had no way of knowing that I was ill and could not.... And despite all this...."

A dynamo was whirling and buzzing in my head. Buddha ... yellow ... lilies-of-the-valley ... rosy crescent.... Besides,--besides, O- wanted to come to see me today! I am sure she would not believe (how could one believe), that I had absolutely nothing to do with the matter, that ... I am sure also that we (O- and I) will have a difficult, foolish and absolutely illogical conversation. No, anything but that! Let the situation solve itself mechanically; I shall send her a copy of this official communication.

While I was hastily putting the paper in my pocket, I noticed my terrible ape-like hand. I remembered how that day during our walk, she took my hand and looked at it. Is it possible that she really ... that she....

A quarter to twenty-one. A white northern night. Everything was glass,--greenish. But it was a different kind of glass, not like ours, not genuine but very breakable,--a thin glass shell and within that shell things were flying, whirling, buzzing. I should not have been surprised if suddenly the cupola of the auditorium had risen in slow, rolling clouds of smoke; or if the ripe moon had sent an inky smile,--like that one at the little table this morning; or if in all the houses suddenly all the curtains had been lowered and behind the curtains....

I felt something peculiar; my ribs were like iron bars that interfered, decidedly interfered, with my heart, giving it too little space. I stood at a glass door on which were the golden letters _I-330_; I-330 sat at the table with her back to me; she was writing something. I stepped in.

"Here...." I held out the pink check, "... I received the notification this noon and here I am!"

"How punctual you are! Just a minute please, may I? Sit down. I shall finish in a minute."

She lowered her eyes to the letter. What had she there, behind her lowered curtains? What would she say? What would she do in a second? How to learn it? How to calculate it, since she comes from beyond, from the wild ancient land of dreams? I looked at her in silence. My ribs were iron bars. The space for the heart was too small.... When she speaks her face is like a swiftly revolving, glittering wheel; you cannot see the separate bars. But at that moment the wheel was motionless. I saw a strange combination: dark eyebrows running right to the temples--a sharp, mocking triangle; and still another dark triangle with its apex upward--two deep wrinkles from the nose to the angles of the mouth. And these two triangles somehow contradicted each other. They gave the whole face that disagreeable, irritating X, or cross; a face obliquely marked by a cross.

The wheel started to turn; its bars blurred.

"So you did not go to the Bureau of Guardians after all?"

"I did ... I did not feel well ... I could not."

"Yes? I thought so; something _must_ have prevented you, matters little what (sharp teeth--a smile). But now you are in my hands. You remember: 'Any Number who within forty-eight hours fails to report to the Bureau is considered....'"

My heart banged so forcibly that the iron bars bent. If I were not sitting ... like a little boy, how stupid! I was caught like a little boy and stupidly I kept silent. I felt I was in a net; neither my legs nor my arms....

She stood up and stretched herself lazily. She pressed the button and the curtains on all four walls fell with a slight rustle. I was cut off from the rest of the world, alone with her.

She was somewhere behind me, near the closet door. The unif was rustling, falling. I was listening, _all_ listening. I remembered,--no, it glistened in my mind for one hundredth of a second,--I once had to calculate the curve of a street membrane of a new type. (These membranes are handsomely decorated and are placed on all the avenues, registering all street conversations for the Bureau of Guardians.) I remembered a rosy concave, trembling membrane,--a strange being consisting of one organ only, an ear. I was at that moment such a membrane.

Now the "click" of the snap-button at her collar, at her breast, and ... lower. The glassy silk rustled over her shoulders and knees, over the floor. I heard--and this was clearer than actual seeing--I heard how one foot stepped out of the grayish-blue heap of silk, then the other.... Soon I'd hear the creak of the bed and ...

The tensely stretched membrane trembled and registered the silence,--no, the sharp hammer-like blows of the heart against the iron bars and endless pauses between beats. And I heard, saw, how she, behind me hesitated for a second, thinking. The door of the closet.... It slammed; again silk ... silk....

"Well, all right."

I turned around. She was dressed in a saffron-yellow dress of an ancient style. This was a thousand times worse than if she had not been dressed at all. Two sharp points, through the thin tissue glowing with rosiness, two burning embers piercing through ashes; two tender, round knees....

She was sitting in a low armchair. In front of her on a small square table, I noticed a bottle filled with something poisonously green and two small glasses on thin legs. In the corner of her mouth she had a very thin paper tube; she was ejecting smoke formed by the burning of that ancient smoking substance whose name I do not now remember.

The membrane was still vibrating. Within the sledge-hammer was pounding the red-hot iron bars of my chest. I heard distinctly every blow of the hammer, and ... what if she too heard it?

But she continued to produce smoke very calmly; calmly she looked at me; and nonchalantly she flicked ashes on the pink check!

With as much self-control as possible I asked, "If you still feel that way, why did you have me assigned to you? And why did you make me come here?"

As if she had not heard at all, she poured some of the green liquid from the bottle into a small glass and sipped it.

"Wonderful liqueur! Want some?"

Then I understood; alcohol! Like lightning there came to memory what I saw yesterday: the stony hand of the Well-Doer, the unbearable blade of the electric ray; there on the Cube, the head thrown backward, the stretched-out body! I shivered.

"Please listen," I said, "You know, do you not, that any one who poisons himself with nicotine, more particularly with alcohol, is severely treated by the United State?"

Dark brows raised high to the temples, the sharp mocking triangle.

"'It is more reasonable to annihilate a few than to allow many to poison themselves.... And degeneration,' ... etc.... This is true to the point of indecency."

"Indecency?"

"Yes. To let out into the street such a group of bald-headed naked little truths. Only imagine please. Imagine, say, that persistent admirer of mine, S-, well, you know him. Then imagine: if he should discard the deception of clothes and appear in public in his true form ... oh!" She laughed. But I clearly saw her lower, sorrowful triangle; two deep grooves from the nose to the mouth. And for some reason these grooves made me think: that double-curved being, half-hunched, with wing-like ears,--he embraced her? her, such ... Oh!

Naturally, I try now merely to express my abnormal feelings of that moment. Now, as I write, I understand perfectly that all this is as it should be; that he, S-4711, like any other honest Number has a perfect right to the joys of life and that it would be unjust.... But I think the point is quite clear.

I-330 laughed a long, strange laugh. Then she cast a look at me, into me.

"The most curious thing is that I am not in the least afraid of you. You are such a dear, I am sure of it! You would never think of going to the Bureau and reporting that I drink liqueurs and smoke. You will be sick or busy, or I don't know what.... Furthermore, I am sure you will drink this charming poison with me."

What an impertinent, mocking tone! I felt definitely that in a moment I should hate her. (Why in a moment? In fact I hated her all the time.)

I-330 turned over the little glass of green poison straight into her mouth. Then she stood up, and all rosy through the translucent saffron-yellow tissue, she made a few steps and stopped behind my chair.... Suddenly her arms were about my neck ... her lips grew into mine, no, even somewhere much deeper, much more terribly.... I swear all this was very unexpected for me. That is why perhaps ... for I could not (at this moment I see clearly) I could not myself have the desire to....

Unbearably sweet lips. (I suppose it was the taste of the liqueur.) It was as though burning poison were being poured into me, and more and more....

I tore away from the earth and began revolving as an independent planet,--down--down--following an uncalculable curve....

What happened next I am able to describe only in an approximate way, only by way of more or less corresponding analogies.

It never occurred to me before but it is true: we who live on the earth, we are always walking over a seething red sea of fire which is hidden in the womb of the earth. We never think of it. But imagine the ground under our feet suddenly transformed into a thin glass shell; suddenly we should behold...!

I became glass-like and saw within myself. There were two selves in me. One, the former D-503, Number D-503; and the other.... Before, that other used only to show his hairy paws from time to time, but now the whole other self left his shell. That shell was breaking, and in a moment....

Grasping with all my strength the last straw (the arms of the chair), I asked loudly (so as to hear my first self), "Where, where did you get this poison?"

"Oh, this? A physician, one of my...."

"'One of my! one of my' what?" And my other self jumped up suddenly and yelled: "I won't allow it! I want no one but me.... I shall kill any one who.... Because I.... You." ... I saw my other self grasp her rudely with his hairy paws, tear the silk, and put his teeth in her flesh!... I remember exactly, his teeth!...

I do not remember how, but I-330 slipped away and I saw her straightened, her head raised high, her eyes overlain by that cursed impenetrable curtain. She stood leaning with her back against the closet door and listening to me.

I remember I was on the floor; I embraced her limbs, kissed her knees and cried supplicatingly, "At once, right away, right away."

Sharp teeth.... The sharp mocking triangle of the brows.... She bent over and in silence unbuttoned my badge.

"Yes, yes, dear--dear."

I began hastily to remove my unif. But I-330, silent as before, lifted my badge to my eyes, showing me the clock upon it. It was twenty-two-twenty-five.

I became cold. I knew what it meant to be out in the street after twenty-two-thirty. My insanity disappeared at once. I was again I. I saw clearly one thing: I hated her, hated her, hated-- ... Without saying good-bye, without looking back, I ran out of the room. Hurriedly trying to fasten the badge back in its place, I ran down the stairs (I was afraid lest some one notice me in the elevator), and jumped out into a deserted street.

Everything was in its place; life so simple, ordinary, orderly. Glittering glass houses, pale glass sky, a greenish, motionless night. But under that cool glass something wild, something red and hairy, was silently seething. I was gasping for breath but I continued to run, so as not to be late.

Suddenly I felt that my badge which I had hurriedly pinned on, was detaching itself; it came off and fell to the sidewalk. I bent over to pick it up and in the momentary silence I heard somebody's steps. I turned. Someone small and hunched was disappearing around the corner. At least so it seemed. I started to run as fast as I could. The wind whistled in my ears. At the entrance of my house I stopped and looked at the clock; one minute to twenty-two-thirty! I listened; nobody behind. It was my foolish imagination, the effect of the poison.

The night was full of torture. My bed seemed to lift itself under me, then to fall again, then up again! I used autosuggestion: "At night all the Numbers must sleep; sleeping at night is a duty just like working during the day. To sleep at night is necessary for the next day's work. Not to sleep at night is criminal." Yet I could not sleep--I could not. I was perishing! I was unable to fulfill my duties to the United State! I....

RECORD ELEVEN

No, I Can't; Let It Be without Headings!

Evening. It is somewhat foggy. The sky is covered with a milky-golden tissue, and one cannot see what is there, beyond, on the heights. The ancients "knew" that the greatest, bored skeptic--their God, lived there. We know that crystalline, blue, naked, indecent Nothing is there. _I_ do not know any more what _is_ there. I have learned too many things of late. Knowledge, self-confident knowledge which is sure that it is faultless, is faith. I had firm faith in myself; I believed that I knew all about myself. But then.... I look in the mirror. And for the first time in my life, yes, _for the first time in my life_, I see clearly, precisely, consciously and with surprise, I see myself as some "him!" I am "he." Frowning, black, straight brows; between them like a scar, there is a vertical wrinkle. (Was there that wrinkle before?) Steel gray eyes encircled by the shadow of a sleepless night. And behind that steel ... I understand; I never before knew what there was behind that steel. From there (this "there" is at once so near and so infinitely distant!) I look at myself--at "him." And I know surely that "he" with his straight brows is a stranger, that I meet him here for the first time in my life. The real I is _not_ he.

No. Period. All this is nonsense. And all these foolish emotions are only delirium, the result of last night's poisoning.... Poisoning with what? With a sip of that green poison or with her? It matters little. I write all this merely in order to demonstrate how strangely the precise and sharp human reason may become confused. This reason, strong enough to make infinity which the ancients feared so much, understandable by means of.... The switch buzzes, "Number R-13." Well, I am even glad; alone I should....

_Twenty minutes later_:

On the plane of this paper, in a world of two dimensions, these lines follow each other, but in another world they.... I am losing the sense for figures.... Twenty minutes! Perhaps two hundred or two hundred thousand!...

It seems so strange, quietly, deliberately, measuring every word, to write down my adventure with R-. Imagine yourself sitting down at your own bed, crossing your legs, watching curiously how you yourself shrivel in the very same bed. My mental state is similar to that.

When R-13 came in I was perfectly quiet and normal. I began with sincere admiration to tell him how wonderfully he succeeded in versifying the death sentence of that insane man, and that his poem more than anything else had smothered and annihilated the transgressor of the law.

"More than that," I said, "if I were ordered to prepare a mathematical draught of the Machine of the Well-Doer, I should undoubtedly,--undoubtedly, put on that draught some of your verses!"--Suddenly I saw R-'s eyes becoming more and more opaque, his lips acquiring a gray tint.

"What is the matter?"

"What?--Well.... Merely that I am dead sick of it; everybody keeps on: 'the death-sentence, the death-sentence!' I want to hear no more of it! You understand? I do not want...." He became serious, rubbing his neck--that little valise filled with luggage which I cannot understand. A silence. There! He found something in that little valise of his, removed it, unwrapped it, spread it out; his eyes became covered with the varnish of laughter. He began:

"I am writing something for your _Integral_. Yes.... I am!" He was himself again; bubbling, sprinkling lips; words splashing like a fountain.