Chapter VI: Part 6

It seems to me it was I, yes, I am certain it was I, who then jumped on the rock; from there I saw the sun, heads, a green sea on a blue background, and I cried:

"Yes, yes, precisely. All must become insane; we must become insane as soon as possible! We must; I know it."

I-330 was at my side. Her smile--two dark lines from the angles of her mouth directed upward.... And within me a blazing coal. It was momentary, light, a little painful, beautiful.... And later,--only stray fragments that remained sticking in me....

... Very low and slowly a bird was moving. I saw it was living, like me. It was turning its head now to the right and then to the left like a human being, and its round black eyes screwed themselves into me....

... Then: a human back glistening with fur the color of ancient ivory;--a mosquito crawling on that back, a mosquito with tiny transparent wings. The back twitched to chase the mosquito away; it twitched again....

... And yet another thing: a shadow from the leaves, a woven, net-like shadow. Some lay in that shadow, chewing something, something similar to the legendary food of the ancients, a long yellow fruit and a piece of something dark. They put some of it in my hand, and it seemed droll to me for I did not know whether I might eat it or not....

... And again: a crowd, heads, legs, arms, mouths, faces appearing for a second and disappearing like bursting bubbles. For a second appeared (or perhaps it was only an hallucination?) the transparent, flying wing-ears....

With all my might I pressed the hand of I-330. She turned to me.

"What is the matter?"

"He is here! I thought, I--"

"Who?"

"S-, a second ago, in the crowd."

The ends of the thin coal-black, brows moved to the temples--a smile like a sharp triangle. I could not see clearly why she smiled. How could she smile?

"But you understand, I-330, don't you, you understand what it means if he, or one of them is here?"

"You are funny! How could it ever enter the heads of those within the Wall that we are here? Remember; take yourself. Did you ever think it was possible? They are busy hunting us _there_,--let them! You are delirious!"

Her smile was light and cheerful and I too, was smiling; the earth was drunken, cheerful, light, floating....

RECORD TWENTY-EIGHT

Both of Them
Entropy and Energy
The Opaque Part of the Body

If your world is similar to the world of the ancients, then you may easily imagine that one day you suddenly come upon a sixth or a seventh continent, upon some Atlantis, and you find there unheard of cities, labyrinths, people flying through the air without the aid of wings or aeros, stones lifted into the air by the power of a gaze,--in brief, imagine that you see things that cannot come to your mind even if you suffer from dream-sickness. That is how I feel now. For you must understand that no one has ever gone beyond the Green Wall since the Two Hundred Years' War, as I already have told you.

I know that it is my duty to you, my unknown friends, to give more details about that unsuspected strange world which opened to me yesterday. But for the time being I am unable to return to that subject. Everything is so novel, so novel it is like a rainstorm, and I am not big enough to collect it all. I spread out the folds of my unif, my palms,--and yet pailfuls splash past me and only drops can reach these pages....

At first I heard behind me, behind the door, a loud voice. I recognized her voice, the voice of I-330, tense, metallic--and another one, almost inflexible, like a wooden ruler, the voice of U-. Then the door came open with a crack and both of them shot into the room. _Shot_ is the right word.

I-330 put her hand on the back of my armchair and smiled over her shoulder but only with her teeth, at U-. I should not care to stand before such a smile.

"Listen," she said to me, "this woman seems to have made it her business to guard you from me like a little child. Is it with your permission?"

"But he _is_ a child. Yes! That is why he does not notice that you ... that it is only in order.... That all this is only a foul game! Yes! And it is my duty...."

For a second (in the mirror) the broken, trembling line of brows. I leaped, controlling with difficulty the other self within me, the one with the hairy fists; with difficulty, pushing every word through my teeth, I cried straight into her face, into her very gills:

"Get out of here at once! Out! At once!"

The gills swelled at first into brick-red lumps, then fell and became gray. She opened her mouth to say something but without a word she slammed it shut and went out.

I threw myself towards I-330.

"Never, never will I forgive myself! She dared! You ... but you don't think, do you, that you, that she.... This is all because she wants to register on me but I...."

"Fortunately she will not have time for that now. Besides, even a thousand like her.... I don't care.... I know you will not believe that thousand but only me. For after all that happened yesterday, I am all yours, all, to the very end, as you wanted it. I am in your hands; you can now at any moment...."

"What, 'at any moment?'" (But at once I understood what. My blood rushed to my ears and cheeks.) "Don't speak about that, you must never speak about that! The _other_ I, my former self ... but now...."

"How do I know? Man is like a novel: up to the last page one does not know what the end will be. It would not be worth reading otherwise."

She was stroking my head. I could not see her face but I could tell by her voice that she was looking somewhere very far into the distance; she hooked herself to that cloud which was floating silently, slowly, no one knows where to.

Suddenly she pushed me away with her hand, firmly but tenderly.

"Listen. I came to tell you that perhaps we are now ... our last days.... You know, don't you, that all Auditoriums are to be closed after tonight?"

"Closed?"

"Yes. I passed by and saw that in all Auditoriums preparations are going on: tables; medics all in white...."

"But what does it all mean?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows as yet. That is the worst of it. I only feel the current is on, the spark is jumping, and if not today, then tomorrow.... Yet perhaps they will not have time...."

For a long while I have ceased to understand who are _they_ and who _we_. I do not understand what I want; do I want them to have or not to have enough time? One thing is clear to me: I-330 is now on the very edge, on the very edge, and in one second more....

"But it is folly," I said. "You, versus the United State! It is the same as if you should cover the muzzle of a gun with your hands and expect that way to prevent the shot.... It is absolute folly!"

A smile.

"'We must all go insane,--as soon as possible go insane.' It was yesterday, do you remember?"

Yes, she was right; I had even written it down. Consequently it really took place. In silence I looked into her face. At that moment the dark cross was especially distinct.

"I-, dear, before it is too late.... If you want ... I'll leave everything, I'll forget everything, and we'll go there beyond the Wall, to _them_.... I do not even know who they are...."

She shook her head. Through the dark windows of her eyes I saw within her a flaming oven, sparks, tongues of flame and above them a heap of dry, tarry wood. It was clear to me that it was too late, my words could be of no avail.

She stood up. She would soon leave. Perhaps these were the last days, or the last minutes.... I grasped her hand.

"No, stay a little while longer ... for the sake ... for the sake...."

She slowly lifted my hand towards the light, my hairy paw which I detest. I wanted to withdraw it but she held it tightly.

"Your hand.... You undoubtedly don't know and very few do know, that women from here occasionally used to fall in love with _them_. Probably there are in you a few drops of that blood of the sun and the woods. Perhaps that is why I...."

Silence. It was so strange that because of that silence, because of an emptiness, of nothing, my heart should beat so wildly. I cried.

"Ah, you shall not go yet! You shall not go until you tell me about _them_ ... for you love ... them, and I do not know even who they are, nor where they come from."

"Who are they? The half we have lost. H2 and O, two halves; but in order to get water, H2O, creeks, seas, waterfalls, storms, it is necessary that those two halves be united."

I distinctly remember every movement of hers. I remember she picked up a glass triangle from my table and while talking she pressed its sharp edge against her cheek; a white scar would appear; then it would fill again and become pink and disappear. And it is strange that I cannot remember her words, especially the beginning of the story. I remember only different images and colors. At first, I remember, she told me about the Two Hundred Years' War. Red color.... On the green of the grass, on the dark clay, on the pale blue of the snow,--everywhere red ditches that would not become dry. Then yellow; yellow grass burned by the sun, yellow naked wild-men and wild dogs side by side near swollen cadavers of dogs or perhaps of men. All this, certainly beyond the Walls, for the City was already the victor and it possessed already our present-day petroleum food. And at night ... down from the sky ... heavy black folds. The folds would swing over the woods, the villages,--blackish-red slow columns of smoke. A dull moaning; endless strings of people driven into the City to be saved by force and to be whipped into happiness.

"... You knew almost all this."

"Yes, almost."

"But you did not know and only a few did, that a small part of them remained together and stayed to live beyond the Wall. Being naked, they went into the woods. They learned there from the trees, beasts, birds, flowers and sun. Hair soon grew over their bodies, but under that hair they preserved their warm red blood. With you it was worse; numbers covered your bodies; numbers crawled over you like lice. One ought to strip you of everything, and naked you ought to be driven into the woods. You ought to learn how to tremble with fear, with joy, with wild anger, with cold; you should pray to fire! And we Mephi, we want...."

"Oh, wait a minute! 'Mephi,' what does it mean!"

"Mephi? It is from Mephisto. You remember, there on the rock, the figure of the youth? Or, no. I shall explain it to you in your own language and you will understand better: there are two forces in the world, entropy and energy. One leads into blessed quietude, to happy equilibrium, the other to the destruction of equilibrium, to torturingly perpetual motion. Our, or rather your ancestors, the Christians, worshipped entropy like a God. But we are not Christians, we...."

At that moment a slight whisper was suddenly heard, a knock at the door, and in rushed that flattened man with the forehead low over his eyes, who several times had brought me notes from I-330. He ran straight to us, stopped, panting like an air-pump, and could say not a word, as he must have been running at top speed.

"But tell me! What has happened?" I-330 grasped him by the hand.

"They are coming here,--" panted the air-pump, "with guards.... And with them that what's-his-name, the hunchback...."

"S-?"

"Yes. They are in the house by this time. They'll soon be here. Quick, quick!"

"Nonsense, we have time!" I-330 was laughing, cheerful sparks in her eyes. It was either absurd, senseless courage, or else there was something I did not yet understand.

"I-, dear, for the sake of the Well-Doer! You must understand that this...."

"For the sake of the Well-Doer!" The sharp, triangle-smile.

"Well ... well, for my sake, I implore you!"

"Oh, yes, I wanted to talk to you about some other matters.... Well, never mind.... We'll talk about them tomorrow."

And cheerfully (yes cheerfully) she nodded to me; the other came out for a second from under his forehead's awning and nodded also. I was alone.

Quick! To my desk! I opened this manuscript, took the pen so that they should find me at this work which is for the benefit of the United State. Suddenly I felt every hair on my head living, separated, moving: "What if they should read, even one page of these most recently written?"

Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing together. "To hide them! But where?" Glass all around. "To burn them?" But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self....

Voices from a distance (from the corridor) and steps. I had only time to snatch a handful of pages and put them under me, and then as if soldered to the armchair, every atom of which was quivering, I remained sitting, while the floor under my feet rolled like the deck of a ship, up and down....

All shrunk together and hidden under the awning of my own forehead like that messenger, I watched them stealthily; they were going from room to room, beginning at the right end of the corridor. Nearer ... nearer.... I saw that some sat in their rooms, torpid like me; others would jump up and open their doors wide,--lucky ones! If only I too, could....

"The Well-Doer is the most perfect fumigation humanity needs, consequently no peristalsis in the organism of the United State could...." I was writing this nonsense, pressing my trembling pen hard, and lower and lower my head bent over the table, and within me some sort of crazy forge.... With my back I was listening ... and I heard the click of the door-knob.... A current of fresh air.... My armchair was dancing a mad dance.... Only then, and even then with difficulty, I tore myself away from the page, turned my head in the direction of the newcomers (how difficult it is to play a foul game!). In front of all was S-, morose, silent, swiftly drilling with his eyes deep shafts within me, within my armchair and within the pages which were twitching in my hands. Then for a second--familiar, everyday faces at the door; one of them separated itself from the rest with its bulging, pinkish-brown gills....

At once I recalled everything that happened in the same room half an hour ago and it was clear to me that they would presently....

All my being was shriveling and pulsating in that fortunately opaque part of my body with which I was covering the manuscript. U- came up to S-, gently plucked his sleeve and said in a low voice:

"This is D-503, the builder of the _Integral_. You have probably heard of him. He is always like that, at his desk; does not spare himself at all!"

... And I thought!... What a dear, wonderful woman!...

S- slid up to me, bent over my shoulder toward the table. I covered the lines I had written with my elbow but he shouted severely:

"Show us at once what you have there, please!"

Dying with shame, I held out the sheet of paper. He read it over, and I noticed a tiny smile jump out of his eyes, jump down his face and slightly wagging its tail, perch upon the right angle of his mouth....

"Somewhat ambiguous, yet.... Well, you may continue; we shall not disturb you any more."

He went splashing towards the door as if in a ditch of water. And with every step of his I felt coming back to me my legs, my arms, my fingers,--my soul again distributed itself evenly over my whole body; I breathed....

The last thing: U- lingered in my room to come back to me and say in my very ear in a whisper: "It is lucky for you that I...."

I did not understand. What did she mean by that? The same evening I learned that they led away three Numbers, although nobody speaks out loud about that, or about anything that happened. This ostensible silence is due to the educational influence of the Guardians who are ever present among us. Conversations deal chiefly with the quick fall of the barometer and the forthcoming change in the weather.

RECORD TWENTY-NINE

Threads on the Face
Sprouts
An Unnatural Compression

It is strange: the barometer continues to fall yet there is no wind. There is quiet. Above, the storm which we do not yet hear has begun. The clouds are rushing with a terrific speed. There are few of them as yet; separate fragments; it is as if there above us an unknown city were being destroyed and pieces of walls and towers were rushing down, coming nearer and nearer with terrific speed, but it will take some days of rushing through the blue infinite before they reach the bottom, that is us, below. And below there is silence.

There are thin, incomprehensible, almost invisible threads in the air; every autumn they are brought here from beyond the Wall. They float slowly, and suddenly you feel something foreign and invisible on your face; you want to brush it off, but no, you cannot rid yourself of it. You feel it especially near the Green Wall, where I was this morning. I-330 made an appointment with me to meet her in the Ancient House in that "Apartment" of ours.

I was not far from the rust-red, opaque mass of the Ancient House, when I heard behind me short hasty steps and rapid breathing. I turned around and saw O-90 trying to catch up to me. She seemed strangely and perfectly rounded. Her arms and breast, her whole body, so familiar to me, was rounded out, stretching her unif. It seemed as though it would soon tear the thin cloth and come out into the sun, into the light. I think that there in the green debris, in springtime, the unseen sprouts try thus to tear their way through the ground in order to emit their branches and leaves and to bloom.

For a few seconds she shone into my face with her blue eyes in silence.

"I saw you on the Day of Unanimity."

"I saw you, too." I at once remembered; below, in a narrow passage she had stood, pressing herself to the wall, protecting her abdomen with her arms, and automatically I glanced now at her abdomen which rounded the unif. She must have noticed, for she became pink, and with a rosy smile:

"I am so happy ... so happy! I am so full of ... you understand, I am ... I walk and I hear nothing around me.... And all the while I listen within, within me...."

I was silent. Something foreign was shadowing my face and I was unable to rid myself of it. Suddenly, all shining, light blue, she caught my hand; I felt her lips upon it.... It was for the first time in my life.... It was some ancient caress as yet unknown to me.... And I was so ashamed and it pained me so much that I swiftly, I think even roughly, pulled my hand away.

"Listen, you are crazy, it seems.... And anyway you ... what are you happy about? Is it possible that you forget what is ahead of you? If not now, then within a month or two...."

Her light went out, her roundness sagged and shrank. And in my heart an unpleasant, even a painful compression, mixed with pity. Our heart is nothing else than an ideal pump: a compression, i.e., a shrinking at the moment of pumping, is a technical absurdity. Hence it is clear how essentially absurd, unnatural and pathological are all these "loves" and "pities," etc., etc., which create that compression....

Silence. To the left the cloudy green glass of the Wall. And just ahead the dark red mass. Those two colors combined, gave me as a resultant what I thought was a splendid idea.

"Wait! I know how to save you! I shall save you from.... To see one's own child for a few moments only and then be sent to death! No! You shall be able to bring it up! You shall watch it and see it grow in your arms, and ripen like a fruit...."

Her body quivered and she seemed to have chained herself to me.

"Do you remember that woman, I-330? That ... of ... of long ago?... Who during that walk?... Well, she is now right here, in the Ancient House. Let us go to her and I assure you that I shall arrange matters at once."

I already pictured us, I-330 and I, leading O-90 through the corridors ... then how she would be brought amidst flowers, grass, and leaves.... But O-90 stepped back, the little horns of her rosy crescent trembling and bending downward.

"Is she _that same one_?" she asked.

"That is...." I was confused for some reason. "Yes, of course ... that very same...."

"And you want me to go to _her_, to ask her ... to.... Don't you ever dare to say another word about it!"

Leaning over, she walked away.... Then as if she remembered something, she turned around and cried:

"I shall die; be it so! And it is none of your business ... what do you care?"

Silence. From above pieces of blue towers and walls were falling downward with terrific speed ... they will have perhaps hours or days to fly through the infinite.... Unseen threads were slowly floating through the air, planting themselves upon my face, and it was impossible to brush them off, impossible to rid myself of them.

I walked slowly toward the Ancient House and in my heart I felt that absurd, tormenting compression....

RECORD THIRTY

The Last Number
Galileo's Mistake
Would It Not Be Better?

Here is my conversation with I-330, which took place in the Ancient House yesterday in the midst of loud noise, among colors which stifled the logical course of my thoughts, red, green, bronze, saffron-yellow, orange colors.... And all the while under the motionless marble smile of that snub-nosed ancient poet.

I shall reproduce the conversation word by word, for it seems to me that it may have an enormous and decisive importance for the fate of the United State,--more than that, for the fate of the universe. Besides, reading it, you my unknown readers, may find some justification for me. I-330, without preliminaries, at once threw everything upon my head:

"I know that the day after tomorrow the first trial trip of the _Integral_ is to take place. On that day we shall take possession of it."

"What! Day after tomorrow?"

"Yes. Sit down and don't be upset. We cannot afford to lose a minute. Among the hundreds who were arrested yesterday there are twenty Mephis. To let pass two or three days means that they will perish."

I was silent.

"As observers on the trial trip they will send electricians, mechanicians, physicians, meteorologists, etc.... At twelve sharp, you must remember this, when the bell rings for dinner we shall remain in the passage, lock them all up in the dining hall, and the _Integral_ will be ours. You realize that it is most necessary, happen what may! The _Integral_ in our hands will be a tool that will help to put an end to everything at once without pain.... Their aeros?... Bah! They would be insignificant mosquitos against a buzzard. And then, if it proves inevitable, we may direct the tubes of the motors downward and by their work alone...."

I jumped up.

"It is inconceivable! It is absurd! Is it not clear to you that what you are contriving is a revolution?"

"Yes, a revolution. Why is it absurd?"

"Absurd? because a revolution is impossible! Because _our_ (I speak for myself and for you), our revolution was the last one. No other revolutions may occur. Everybody knows that."

A mocking, sharp triangle of brows.

"My dear, you are a mathematician, are you not? More than that, a philosopher-mathematician? Well then, name the last number!"

"What is ... I ... I cannot understand, which _last_?"

"The last one, the highest, the largest."

"But I-330, it is absurd! Since the number of numbers is infinite, how can there be a last one?"

"And why then do you think there is a _last_ revolution? There is no last revolution, their number is infinite.... The 'last one' is a children's story. Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is necessary that children should not be frightened, so that they may sleep through the night."

"But what is the use, what is the use of it all? For the sake of the Well-Doer! What is the use since all are happy already?"

"All right! Even suppose that is so. What further?"

"How funny! A purely childish question. You tell something to children, come to the very end, yet they will invariably ask you, 'what further?' and 'what for?'"

"Children are the only courageous philosophers. And courageous philosophers are invariably children. One ought always to ask like children, 'what further'?"

"Nothing further! Period. In the whole world evenly, everywhere, there is distributed...."

"Ah, 'evenly!' 'Everywhere!' That is the point, entropy! Psychological entropy. Don't you as a mathematician know that only differences (only differences!), in temperature, only thermic contrasts make for life? And if all over the world there are evenly warm or evenly cold bodies, they must be pushed off! ... in order to get flame, explosions! And we shall push!..."

"But I-330, please realize that our ancestors during the Two Hundred Years' War did exactly that!"

"Oh, they were right! A thousand times right! They did one wrong thing, however; later they began to believe that they were the _last number_, a number that does not exist in nature. Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo; he was right in that the earth revolves about the sun but he did not know that our whole solar system revolves about some other centre, he did not know that the real (not relative) orbit of the earth is not a naive circle."

"And you, the Mephi?"

"We? For the time being we know that there is no _last_ number. We may forget that some day. Of course, we shall certainly forget it when we grow old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall inevitably fall like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the day-after-tomorrow.... No, no dear, not you personally. You are with us, are you not? You are with us?"

Flaming, stormy, sparkling! I never before had seen her in such a state. She embraced me with her whole self; I disappeared.

Her last word, looking steadily, deeply into my eyes:

"Then, do not forget: at twelve o'clock sharp."

And I answered:

"Yes, I remember."

She left. I was alone amidst a rebellious, multi-voiced commotion of blue, red, green, saffron-yellow and orange....

Yes, at twelve!... Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on my face, of something implanted, that could not be brushed off. Suddenly, yesterday morning, and U- and all she shouted into the face of I-330! Why, how absurd!

I hastened to get out of the house and home, home! Somewhere behind me I heard the chattering of birds beyond the Wall. And ahead of me in the setting sun the balls of cupolas made of red, crystallized fire, enormous flaming cubes--houses, and the sharp point of the Accumulating Tower high in the sky like a paralyzed streak of lightning. And all this, all this impeccable, most geometric beauty, shall I, I myself, with my hands...? Is there no way out? No path? No trail?

I passed by an auditorium (I do not recall its number). Inside, the benches were stacked along the walls. In the middle, tables covered with snow-white glass sheets, with pink stains of sunny blood on the white.... There was foreshadowed in all that some unknown and therefore alarming tomorrow. It is unnatural for a thinking and seeing human being to live among irregularities, unknowns, X's. If suddenly your eyes were covered with a bandage and you were let go to feel around, to stumble, ever aware that somewhere very close to you there is the border-line, one step only and nothing but a compressed, smothered piece of flesh will be left of you.... I now feel somewhat like that.

... And what if without waiting for anything I should ... just head down.... Would it not be the only right thing to do? To disentangle everything at once?

RECORD THIRTY-ONE

The Great Operation
I Forgave Everything
The Collision of Trains

Saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was nothing to hold to, that it was the end!...

It was as if you already ascended the steps towards the threatening machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy thud already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked at the blue sky to swallow it with your eyes ... when suddenly, it was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall ... what happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in the white pillow!... This is approximately what I felt, when I read the State Journal this morning. It has been all a terrible dream and this dream is over. And I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that I thought of selfish, voluntary death! I am ashamed now to reread the last lines of yesterday. But let them remain as a memory of that incredible might-have-happened, which will not happen! On the front page of the State Journal the following gleamed:

"REJOICE!

"For from now on we are _perfect!_

"Before today your own creation, engines, were more perfect than you.

"WHY?

"For every spark from a dynamo--is a spark of pure reason; each motion of a piston--a pure syllogism. Is it not true that the same faultless reason is within you?

"The philosophy of the cranes, presses, and pumps is finished and clear like a circle. But is your philosophy less circular? The beauty of a mechanism lies in its immutable, precise rhythm, like that of a pendulum. But have you not become as precise as a pendulum, you who are brought up on the system of Taylor?

"Yes, but there is one difference:

"MECHANISMS HAVE NO FANCY

"Did you ever notice a pump cylinder during its work show upon its face a wide, distant, sensuously-dreaming smile? Did you ever hear cranes restlessly toss about and sigh at night, during the hours designed for rest?

"NO!

"Yet on your faces (you may well blush with shame!), the Guardians have seen more and more frequently those smiles and they have heard your sighs. And (you should hide your eyes for shame!) the historians of the United State all tendered their resignations so as to be relieved from having to record such shameful occurrences.

"It is not your fault; you are ill. And the name of your illness is

"FANCY

"It is a worm that gnaws black wrinkles on one's forehead. It is a fever that drives one to run farther and farther, albeit 'farther' may begin where happiness ends. It is the last barricade on our road to happiness.

"_Rejoice! This Barricade Has Been Blasted at Last! The Road is Open!_

"The latest discovery of our State science is that there is a centre for fancy,--a miserable little nervous knot in the lower region of the frontal lobe of the brain. A triple treatment of this knot with X-rays will cure you of fancy--

"_Forever!_

"You are perfect; you are mechanized; the road to hundred per-cent happiness is open! Hasten then all of you, young and old, hasten to undergo the great Operation! Hasten to the auditoriums where the great Operation is being performed! Long live the Great Operation! Long live the United State! Long live the Well-Doer."

You, had you read all this not in my records which look like an ancient strange novel, had you like me held in your trembling hands the newspaper, smelling of typographic ink ... if you knew as I do, that all this is most certain reality, if not the reality of today, then that of tomorrow,--would you not feel the very things I feel? Would not your head whirl as mine does? Would there not run over your back and arms those strange, sweet, icy needles? Would you not feel that you were a giant, an Atlas?--that if only you stood up and straightened out you would reach the ceiling with your head?

I snatched the telephone receiver.

"I-330. Yes.... Yes. Yes ... 330!" And then, swallowing my own words I shouted, "Are you at home? Yes? Have you read? You are reading now? Is it not, is it not stupendous?"

"Yes...." A long, dark silence. The wires buzzed almost imperceptibly. She was thinking.

"I must see you today without fail. Yes, in my room, after sixteen, without fail!"

Dear ... she is such a dear!... "Without fail!" I was smiling and I could not stop, I felt I should carry that smile with me into the street like a light above my head.

Outside the wind ran over me, whirling, whistling, whipping, but I felt even more cheerful. "All right, go on, go on moaning and groaning! The Walls cannot be torn down." Flying leaden clouds broke over my head ... well let them! They could not eclipse the sun! We chained it to the zenith like so many Joshuas, sons of Nuns!

At the corner a group of Joshuas, sons of Nuns, were standing with their foreheads pasted to the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table already a Number lay. One could see two naked soles diverging from under the sheet in a yellow angle.... White medics bent over his head,--a white hand, a stretched-out hand holding a syringe filled with something....

"And you, what are you waiting for?" I asked nobody in particular, or rather all of them.

"And you?" Someone's round head turned to me.

"I? Oh, afterward! I must first...." Somewhat confused, I left the place. I really had to see I-330 first. But why first? I could not explain to myself....

The docks. The _Integral_, bluish like ice, was glistening and sparkling. The engine was caressingly grumbling, repeating some one word, as if it were my word, a familiar one. I bent down and stroked the long, cold tube of the motor. "Dear! What a dear tube! Tomorrow it will come to life, tomorrow for the first time it will tremble with burning, flaming streams in its bowels."

With what eyes would I have looked at the glass monster had everything remained as it was yesterday? If I knew that tomorrow at twelve I should betray it, yes, betray.... Someone behind cautiously touched my elbow. I turned around. The plate-like, flat face of the Second Builder.

"Do you know already?" he asked.

"What? About the Operation? Yes. How everything, everything ... suddenly...."

"No, not that. The trial flight is put off until day-after-tomorrow,--on account of that Operation. They rushed us for nothing; we hurried...."

"On account of that Operation!" Funny, limited man. He could see no farther than his own platter! If only he knew that but for the Operation tomorrow at twelve he would be locked-up in a glass cage, would be tossing about, trying to climb the walls!

At twelve-thirty when I came into my room I saw U-. She was sitting at my table, firm, straight, bone-like, resting her right cheek on her hand. She must have waited for a long while because when she brusquely rose to meet me there remained on her cheek five white imprints of her fingers.

For a second that terrible morning came back to me; she beside I-330, indignant. But for a second only. All was at once washed off by the sun of today, as it happens sometimes when you enter your room on a bright day and absent-mindedly turn on the light, the bulb shines but it is out of place, droll, unnecessary.

Without hesitation I held out my hand to her; I forgave her everything. She firmly grasped both my hands and pressed them till they hurt. Her cheeks quivering and hanging down like ancient precious ornaments, she said with emotion:

"I was waiting.... I want only one moment.... I only wanted to say ... how happy, how joyous I am for you! You realize of course, that tomorrow or day-after-tomorrow you will be healthy again, as if born anew."

I noticed my papers on the table; the last two pages of my record of yesterday; they were in the place where I left them the night before. If only she knew what I wrote there! Although I did not care after all. Now it was only history; it was the ridiculously far off distance like an image through a reversed opera-glass.

"Yes," I said, "a while ago, while passing through the avenue, I saw a man walking ahead of me. His shadow stretched along the pavement and think of it! his shadow was luminous! I think, more than that, I am absolutely certain that tomorrow all shadows will disappear. Not a shadow from any person or any thing! The sun will be shining through everything."

She, gently and earnestly:

"You are a dreamer! I should not allow my children in school to talk that way."

She told me something about the children; that they were all led in one herd to the Operation; that it was necessary to bind them afterward with ropes; and that one must love pitilessly, "yes, pitilessly," and that she thought she might finally decide to....

She smoothed out the grayish-blue fold of the unif that fell between her knees, swiftly pasted her smiles all over me and went out.

Fortunately the sun did not stop today. The sun was running. It was already sixteen o'clock.... I was knocking at the door, my heart was knocking....

"Come in!"

I threw myself upon the floor near her chair, to embrace her limbs, to lift my head upward and look into her eyes, first into one then into the other, and in each of them to see the reflection of myself in wonderful captivity....

There beyond the wall it looked stormy, there the clouds were leaden,--let them be! My head was overcrowded with impetuous words, and I was speaking aloud, and flying with the sun I knew not where.... No, now we know where we are flying; planets were following me, planets sparkling with flame and populated with fiery, singing flowers and mute planets, blue ones where rational stones were unified into one organized society, and planets which like our own earth had reached already the apex of one hundred per-cent happiness.

Suddenly from above:

"And don't you think that at the apex are, precisely, _stones_ unified into an organized society?" The triangle grew sharper and sharper, darker and darker.

"Happiness ... well?... Desires are tortures, are they not? It is clear therefore, that happiness is where there are no longer any desires, not a single desire any more. What an error, what an absurd prejudice it was, that formerly we would mark happiness with the sign 'plus'! No, absolute happiness must be marked 'minus,'--divine minus!"

I remember I stammered unintelligibly:

"Absolute zero!--minus 273°C."

"Minus 273°--exactly! A somewhat cool temperature. But does it not prove that we are at the summit?"

As before she seemed somehow to speak for me and through me, developing to the end my own thoughts. But there was something so morbid in her tone that I could not refrain ... with an effort I drew out a "No."

"No," I said, "You, you are mocking...."

She burst out laughing loudly, too loudly. Swiftly, in a second, she laughed herself to some unseen edge, stumbled and fell over.... Silence.

She stood up, put her hands upon my shoulders and looked into me for a long while. Then she pulled me toward her and everything seemed to have disappeared save her sharp, hot lips....

"Good-bye."

The words came from afar, from above, and reached me not at once, only after a minute, perhaps two minutes later.

"Why ... why 'good-bye'?"

"You have been ill, have you not? Because of me you have committed crimes. Has not all this tormented you? And now you have the Operation to look forward to. You will be cured of me. And that means--good-bye."

"No!" I cried.

A pitilessly sharp black triangle on a white background.

"What? Do you mean that you don't want happiness?"

My head was breaking into pieces; two logical trains collided and crawled upon each other, rattling and smothering....

"Well, I am waiting. You must choose; the Operation and hundred per-cent happiness, or...."

"I cannot ... without you.... I must not ... without you...." I said, or perhaps I only thought, I am not sure which, but I-330 heard.

"Yes, I know," she said. Then, her hands still on my shoulders and her eyes not letting my eyes go, "Then ... until tomorrow. Tomorrow at twelve. You remember?"

"No, it was postponed for a day. Day-after-tomorrow!"

"So much the better for us. At twelve, day-after-tomorrow!"

I walked alone in the dusky street. The wind was whirling, carrying, driving me like a piece of paper; fragments of the leaden sky were soaring, soaring--they had to soar through the infinite for another day or two....

Unifs of Numbers were brushing my sides,--yet I was walking alone. It was clear to me that all were saved but that there was no salvation for me. For I _do not want_ salvation....

RECORD THIRTY-TWO

I Do Not Believe
Tractors
A Little Human Splinter

Do you believe that _you will die_? Oh, yes, "Man is mortal. I am a man, consequently...." No, not that; I know that; you know it. But I ask: has it ever happened that you _actually believed_ it? Believed definitely, believed not with your reason but with your _body_, that you actually felt that some day those fingers which now hold this page, will become yellow, icy?...

No, of course you cannot believe this. That is why you have not jumped from the tenth floor to the pavement before now, that is why you eat, turn over these pages, shave, smile, write.

This very thing, yes, exactly this is alive in me today. I know that that small black hand on the clock will slide down here towards midnight, then again it will start to ascend, and it will cross some last border and the improbable tomorrow will have arrived. I _know_ it, but somehow I do not _believe_ it, or perhaps I think that twenty-four hours are twenty-four years. Therefore I am still able to act, to hurry, to answer questions, to climb the rope-ladder to the _Integral_. I am still able to feel how the latter is shaking the surface of the water, and I still understand that I must grasp the railing, and I am still able to feel the cold glass in my hand. I see the transparent, living cranes, bending their long necks, carefully feeding the _Integral_ with the terrible explosive food which the motors need. I still see below on the river the blue veins and knots of water swollen by the wind.... Yet all this seems very distant from me, foreign, flat,--like a draught on a sheet of paper. And it seems to me strange, when the flat, draught-like face of the Second Builder, suddenly asks:

"Well, then. How much fuel for the motors shall we load on? If we count on three, or say three and a half hours...."

I see before me, over a draught, my hand with the counter and the logarithmic dial at the figure 15.

"Fifteen tons. But you'd better take ... yes, better take a thousand."

I said that because I _know_ that tomorrow.... I noticed that my hands and the dial began to tremble.

"A thousand! What do you need such a lot for? That would last a week! No, more than a week!"

"Well, nobody knows...."

I do know....

The wind whistled, the air seemed to be stuffed to the limit with something invisible. I had difficulty in breathing, difficulty in walking, and with difficulty, slowly but without stopping for a second the hand of the Accumulating Tower was crawling, at the end of the avenue. The peak of the Tower reached into the very clouds;--dull, blue, groaning in a subdued way, sucking electricity from the clouds. The tubes of the Musical Tower resounded.

As always--four abreast. But the rows did not seem as firm as usual; they were swinging, bending more and more, perhaps because of the wind. There! They seemed to have stumbled upon something at the corner, and they drew back and stopped, congealed, a close mass, a clot, breathing rapidly; at once all had stretched their necks like geese.

"Look! No look, look--there, quick!"

"_They?_ Are those _they_?"

"Ah, never! Never! I'd rather put my head straight into the Machine...."

"Silence! Are you crazy?"

On the corner the doors of the auditorium were ajar, a heavy column of about fifty people--. The word "people" is not the right one. These were heavy-wheeled automatons bound in iron and moved by an invisible mechanism. Not people but a sort of human-like tractor. Over their heads, floating in the air--a white banner with a golden sun embroidered on it, and the rays of the sun: "We are the first! We have already been operated upon! Follow us, all of you!"

They slowly, unhesitatingly mowed through the crowd, and it was clear that if they had had in their way a wall, a tree, a house, they would have moved on with no more hesitation through wall, tree or house. In the middle of the avenue they fused and stretched out into a chain, arm in arm, their faces turned towards us. And we, a human clot, tense, the hair pricking our heads, we waited. Our necks were stretched out goose-fashion. Clouds. The wind whistled. Suddenly the wings of the chain from right and left bent quickly around us, and faster, faster, like a heavy engine descending a hill, they closed the ring and pulled us toward the yawning doors and inside....

Somebody's piercing cry: "They are driving us in! Run!"

All ran. Close to the wall there still was an open living gate of human beings. Everybody dashed through it, heads forward. Their heads became sharp wedges, so with their ribs, shoulders, hips.... Like a stream of water compressed in a firehose they spurted out in the form of a fan,--and all around me stamping feet, raised arms, unifs.... The double-curved S- with his transparent wing-ears appeared for a moment close before my eyes; he disappeared as suddenly; I was alone among arms and legs appearing for a second and disappearing. I was running....

I dashed to the entrance of a house to stop for a breath, my back close to the door,--and immediately, like a splinter borne by the wind, a human being was thrown towards me.

"All the while I ... I have been following you. I do not want ... do you see? I do not want ... I am ready to...."

Small round hands on my sleeves, round dark blue eyes--it was O-90. She just slipped along my body like a unif which, its hanger broken, slips along the wall to fall upon the floor. Like a little bundle she crumpled below me on the cold door-step, and I stood over her, stroking her head, her face,--my hands were wet. I felt as if I were very big and she very small, a small part of myself. I felt something quite different from what I feel towards I-330. I think that the ancients must have had similar feelings towards their private children.

Below, passing through her hands with which she was covering her face, a voice came to me:

"Every night I ... I cannot! If they cure me.... Every night I sit in the darkness alone and think of _him_, and of what he will look like when I.... If cured I should have nothing to live with--do you understand me? You must ... you must...."

An absurd feeling yet it was there; I really must! Absurd, because this "duty" of mine was nothing but another crime. Absurd, because white and black cannot be one, duty and crime cannot coincide. Or perhaps there is no black and white in life, but everything depends upon the first logical premise? If the premise is that I unlawfully gave her a child....

"It is all right, but don't, only don't ..." I said. "Of course I understand.... I must take you to I-330, as I once offered to, so that she...."

"Yes." (This in a low voice, without uncovering her face.)

I helped her rise. Silently we went along the darkening street, each busy with his own thoughts, or perhaps with the same thought.... We walked between silent leaden houses, through the tense, whipping branches of the wind....

Through the whistling of the wind all at once I heard, as if splashing through ditches, the familiar footsteps coming from some unseen point. At the corner I turned around, and among the clouds, flying upside-down reflected in the dim glass of the pavement I saw S-. Instantly my arms became foreign, swinging out of time, and I began to tell O-90 in a low voice that tomorrow, yes tomorrow, was the day of the first flight of the _Integral_, and that it was to be something that never happened before in all history, great, miraculous.

"Think of it! For the first time in life to find myself outside the limits of our city and see--who knows what is beyond the Green Wall?"

O-90 looked at me extremely surprised, her blue eyes trying to penetrate mine; she looked at my senselessly swinging arms. But I did not let her say a word,--I kept talking, talking.... And within me, apart from what I was saying and audible only to myself a thought was feverishly buzzing and knocking. "Impossible! You must somehow ... you must not lead _him_ to I-330!"

Instead of turning to the right I turned to the left. The bridge submissively bent its back in a slavish way to all three of us, to me, to O-, to him behind. Lights were falling from the houses across the water, falling and breaking into thousands of sparks which danced feverishly, sprayed with the mad white foam of the water. The wind was moaning like a tensely stretched string of a double-basso somewhere not far away. Through this basso, behind, all the while....

The house where I live. At the entrance O- stopped and began:

"No! You promised, did you not, that...."

I did not let her finish. Hastily I pushed her through the entrance and we found ourselves in the lobby. At the controller's desk--the familiar, hanging, excitedly quivering cheeks, a group of Numbers around. They were quarreling about something, heads bending over the banisters on the second floor; they were running downstairs one by one. But about that later. I at once drew O-90 into the opposite, unoccupied corner and sat down with my back to the wall. I saw a dark large-headed shadow gliding back and forth over the sidewalk. I took out my notebook. O-90 in her chair was slowly sinking as if she were evaporating from under her unif, as if her body were thawing, as if only her empty unif were left, and empty eyes taking one into the blue emptiness. In a tired voice:

"Why did you bring me here? You lied to me?"

"No, not so loud! Look here! Do you see? Through the wall?"

"Yes, I see a shadow."

"He is always following me.... I cannot.... Do you understand? I cannot therefore ... I am going to write a few words to I-330. You take the note and go alone. I know he will remain here."