Part 12

"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: