"Follow me," said S- austerely.
I followed obediently, waving my unnecessary, foreign arms. I could
not raise my eyes. I walked through a strange world turned upside
down, where people had their feet pasted to the ceilings, and where
engines stood with their bases upward, and where, still lower, the
sky merged in the heavy glass of the pavement. I remember what
pained me most was the fact that looking at the world for the last
time in my life, I should see it upside down rather than in its
natural state; but I could not raise my eyes.
We stopped. Steps. One step ... and I should see the figures of the
doctors in their white aprons and the enormous dumb Bell.
With force, with some sort of an inner screw, at length I succeeded
in tearing my eyes away from the glass beneath my feet, and I
noticed the golden letters, "Medical Bureau." Why did he bring me
here rather than to the Operation Department? Why did he spare
me?--about this I did not even think at that moment. I made one
jump over all the steps, firmly closed the door behind me and took
a very deep breath, as if I had not breathed since morning and as
if my heart had not beaten for the same length of time, as if only
now I started to breathe and only now there opened a sluice in my
chest....
Inside there were two of them, one a short specimen with heavy legs,
his eyes like the horns of a bull tossing the patients up, the other
extremely thin with lips like sparkling scissors, a nose like a
blade--it was the same man who ... I ran to him as to a dear friend,
straight over close to the blade, and muttered something about
insomnia, dreams, shadows, yellow sand. The scissors-lips sparkled
and smiled.
"Yes, it _is_ too bad. Apparently a soul has formed in you."
A soul?--that strange ancient word that was forgotten long ago....
"Is it ... v-very dangerous?" I stuttered.
"Incurable," was the cut of the scissors.
"But more specifically, what is it? Somehow I cannot imagine--"
"You see ... how shall I put it? Are you a mathematician?"
"Yes."
"Then you see ... imagine a plane, let us say this mirror. You
and I are on its surface. You see? there we are, squinting our
eyes to protect ourselves from the sunlight, or here is the bluish
electric spark in that tube, there the shadow of that aero that just
passed. All this is on the surface, is momentary only. Now imagine
this very same surface softened by a flame so that nothing can any
longer glide over it, so everything instead will penetrate into that
mirror world which excites such curiosity in children. I assure
you, children are not so foolish as we think they are! The surface
becomes a volume, a body, a world; and inside the mirror,--within
you, there is the sunshine, and the whirlwind caused by the aero
propeller, and your trembling lips and someone else's lips also. You
see, the cold mirror reflects, throws out, while this one absorbs;
it keeps forever a trace of everything that touches it. Once you saw
an imperceptible wrinkle on some one's face, and this wrinkle is
forever preserved within you; you may happen to hear in the silence
a drop of water falling,--and you will hear it forever!"
"Yes, yes, that is it!" I grasped his hand. I could hear drops of
water dripping in the silence from the faucet of a washstand and at
once I knew it was forever.
"But tell me please, why suddenly ... suddenly a soul? There was
none, yet suddenly.... Why is it that no one has it, yet I...." I
pressed the thin hand; I was afraid to loosen the safety belt.
"Why? Well, why don't we grow feathers or wings, but only shoulder
blades, bases for wings? We have aeros; wings would only be in the
way. Wings are needed in order to fly, but we don't need to fly
anywhere. We have arrived at the terminus. We have found what we
wanted. Is that not so?"
I nodded vaguely. He glanced at me and laughed a scalpel-like
metallic laugh. The other doctor overheard us and stamped out of
his room on his heavy legs. He picked up the thin doctor with his
horn-eyes, then picked me up.
"What is the matter, a soul? You say a soul? Oh, damn it! We may
soon retrogress even to the cholera epidemics. I told you," he
tossed the thin one on the horns, "I told you the only thing to do
is to operate on them all, wholesale! simply extirpate the centre
for fancy. Only surgery can help here, only surgery." He put on
a pair of enormous X-ray spectacles and remained thus for a long
while, looking into my skull, through the bones into my brain and
making notes.
"Very, very curious! Listen." He looked firmly into my eyes. "Would
you not consent to have me perform an extirpation on you? It would
be invaluable to the United State; it might help us to prevent an
epidemic. If you have no special reasons, of course...."
Some time ago I should probably have said without hesitation, "I am
willing," but now,--I was silent. I caught the profile of the thin
doctor; I implored him!
"You see," he said at last, "Number D-530 is building the _Integral_
and I am sure the operation would interfere...."
"Ah-h!" grumbled the other and stamped back into his room.
We remained alone. The paper-like hand was put lightly and
caressingly upon mine, the profile-like face came nearer and he said
in a very low voice: "I shall tell you a secret. You are not the
only one. My colleague is right when he speaks of an epidemic. Try
to remember, have you not noticed yourself, some one with something
similar, very similar, identical?"
He looked at me closely. What was he alluding to? To whom?... Is it
possible?...
"Listen," I jumped up from my seat. But he had already changed the
subject. In a loud metallic tone:
"... As to the insomnia and for the dreams you complain of, I advise
you to walk a great deal. Tomorrow morning you must begin taking
long walks ... say as far as the Ancient House."
Again he pierced me with his eyes and he smiled thinly. It seemed to
me that I saw enveloped in the tender tissue of that smile a word, a
letter, a name, the only name.... Or was it only my imagination? I
waited impatiently while he wrote a certificate of illness for today
and tomorrow. Once more I gently and firmly pressed his hand, then I
ran out.
My heart now feels light and swift like an aero; it carries me
higher and higher.... I know joy will come tomorrow. What joy?...