The Infinitesimal of the Third Order
From Under the Forehead
Over the Railing
There in the strange corridor lighted by the dotted line of dim
little electric lamps ... or no, no, later, when we had already
reached one of the nooks in the courtyard of the Ancient House, she
said, "Day-after-tomorrow." That "day-after-tomorrow" is today. And
everything seems to have wings and to fly; the day flies; and our
_Integral_ too already has wings. We finished placing the motor
and tried it out today, without switching it in. What magnificent,
powerful salvos! Each of them sounded for me like a salute in honor
of _her_, the only one,--in honor of today!
At the time of the first explosion about a dozen loafing Numbers
from the docks stood near the main tube--and nothing was left of
them save a few crumbs and a little soot. With pride I write down
now that this occurrence did not disturb the rhythm of our work even
for a second. Not a man shrank. We and our lathes continued our
rectilinear or curved motions with the same sparkling and polished
precision as before, as if nothing had happened. As a matter of
fact, what did happen? A dozen Numbers represent hardly one hundred
millionth part of the United State. For practical consideration,
that is but an infinitesimal of the third order. That _pity_, a
result of arithmetical ignorance, was known to the ancients; to us
it seems absurd.
It seems droll to me also, that yesterday I was thinking, even
relating in these pages about a gray blot! All that was only the
"softening of the surface" which is normally as hard as diamond,
like our walls. (There is an ancient saying: "Shooting beans at a
stone wall--")
Sixteen o'clock. I did not go for the supplementary walk; who knows,
she might come now, when the sun is so noisily bright.
I am almost the only one in his room. Through the walls full of
sunshine I see for a distance to the right and to the left and below
strings of other rooms, repeating each other as if in a mirror,
hanging in the air and empty. Only on the bluish stairway, striped
by the golden ink of the sun, is seen rising a thin, gray shadow.
Already I hear steps, and I see through the door and I feel a smile
pasted to my face like a plaster. But it passed to another stairway
and down. The click of the switchboard! I threw myself to that
little white slit and ... an unfamiliar male Number! (A consonant
means a male Number.)
The elevator groaned and stopped. A big, slovenly, slanting forehead
stood before me, and the eyes ... They impressed me strangely; it
seemed as if the man talked with his eyes which were deep under the
forehead.
"Here is a letter from her, for you." (From under the awning of that
forehead.) "She asked that everything ... as requested in the letter
... without fail." This too, from under the forehead, from under the
awning, and he turned, looked about.
"No, there is nobody, nobody. Quickly! the letter!"
He put the letter in my hand and went out without a word.
A pink check fell out of the envelope. It was hers, _her_ check! Her
tender perfume! I felt like running to catch up with that wonderful
under-the-forehead one. A tiny note followed the check from the
envelope; three lines: "The check ... Lower the curtains without
fail, as if I were actually with you. It is necessary that they
should think that I ... I am very, very sorry."
I tore the note into small bits. A glance at the mirror revealed
my distorted, broken eyebrows. I took the check and was ready to
do with it as I had done with the note. "She asked that everything
... as requested in the letter ... without fail." My arms weakened
and the hands loosened. The check was back on the table. She _is_
stronger than I, stronger than I. It seemed as though I were going
to act as she wished. Besides ... however, it is a long time before
evening.
The check remained on the table. In the mirror--my distorted, broken
eyebrows. Oh, why did I not have a doctor's certificate for today? I
should like to go and walk, walk without end around the Green Wall
and then to fall on my bed ... to the bottom of.... Yet I had to go
to Auditorium No. 13, and I should have to grip myself, so as to
bear up for two hours! Two hours without motion, at a time when I
wanted to scream and stamp my feet!
The lecture was on. It was very strange to hear from the sparkling
tube of the phono-lecturer not the usual metallic voice but a soft,
velvety, mossy one. It was a woman's voice and I seemed to have a
vision of the woman: a little hook-like old woman, like the one of
the Ancient House.
The Ancient House! Suddenly from within me a powerful fountain
of.... I had to use all my strength to control myself, so as not to
fill the auditorium with screams. The soft mossy words were piercing
me, yet only empty words about children and child-production reached
my ear. I was like a photographic plate: everything was making
its imprint with a strange, senseless precision on me; the golden
scythe which was nothing more than the reflection of light from the
megaphone of the lecture apparatus, under the megaphone a child,
a living illustration. It was leaning toward the megaphone, the
angle of its infinitesimal unif in its mouth, its little fist
clenched firmly, its thumb squeezed into the fist, a light fluffy
pleat of skin at the wrist. Like a photographic plate I was taking
the impression of all this. Now I saw how its naked leg hung over
the edge of the platform, the pink fan of its finger waved in the
air.... One minute more, one second and the child would be on the
floor!
A female's scream, a wave of translucent wings, her unif on the
platform! She caught the child, her lips clung to the fluffy pleat
of the baby's wrist; she moved the child to the middle of the
table and left the platform. The imprints were registering in
me: a pink crescent of a mouth, the horns downward! Eyes like
small blue saucers filled with liquid! It was O-90. And as if
reading a consequential formula, I suddenly felt the necessity, the
naturalness of that insignificant occurrence.
She sat down behind me, somewhat to my left. I looked back.
She quietly removed her gaze from the table and the child and
looked straight into me. Within again: She, I, the table on the
platform,--three points: and through those three points lines were
drawn, a projection of some as yet unforeseen events!
Then I went home through the green dusky street which seemed
many-eyed because of the electric lights. I heard myself
tick-tocking like a clock. And the hands of that clock seemed to be
about to pass a figure: I was going to do something, something that
would cut off every way of retreat. She wants somebody, whom I do
not know, to think she is with me. I want her; what do I care what
_she_ wants? I do not want to be alone behind the curtains and that
is all there is to it!
From behind came sounds of a familiar gait, like splashing in a
ditch. I did not need to look back, I knew it was S-. He would
follow me to the very door, probably. Then he would stay below on
the sidewalk, and he would try to drill upward into my room with his
boring eyes, until the curtains would fall, concealing something
criminal.
Was he my Guardian-Angel? No! My decision was made.
When I came into my room and turned on the light, I could not
believe my eyes! O-90 stood at my table, or to be more exact,
she was hanging like a creased empty dress. She seemed to have
no tensity, no spring beneath the dress; her arms and legs were
springless, her voice was hanging and springless.
"About my letter, did you receive it? Yes? I must know your answer,
I must--today."
I shrugged my shoulders. I enjoyed looking into her blue eyes which
were filled with tears as if she were the guilty one. I lingered
over my answer. With pleasure I pricked her:
"Answer? Well.... You are right. Undoubtedly. In everything."
"Then ..." (She tried to cover the minute tremor with a smile but
it did not escape me.) "Well, all right. I shall ... I shall leave
you at once."
Yet she remained drooping over the table. Drooping eyelids, drooping
arms and legs. The pink check of the other was still on the table. I
quickly opened this manuscript, "WE," and with its pages I covered
the check, trying to hide it from myself, rather than from O-.
"See, here, I am still busy writing. Already 101 pages! Something
quite unexpected comes out in this writing."
In a voice, in a shadow of a voice, "And do you remember ... how the
other day I ... on the _seventh_ page ... and it dropped...."
The tiny blue saucers filled to the borders; silently and rapidly
the tears ran down her cheeks. And suddenly, like the dropping of
the tears,--rushing forth,--words:
"I cannot ... I shall leave you in a moment. I shall never again ...
and I don't care.... Only I want, I must have a child! From you!
Give me a child and I will leave. I will!"
I saw she was trembling all over beneath her unif, and I felt ...
I too, would soon ... would.... I put my hands behind my back and
smiled.
"What? You desire to go under the Machine of the Well-Doer?"
Like a stream her words ran over the dam.
"I don't care. I shall feel it for a while within me. I want to see,
to see only once the little fold of skin here at the wrist, like
that one on the table in the Auditorium. Only for one day!"
Three points: she, I and a little fist with a fluffy fold of skin
there on the table!
I remember how once when I was a child they took me up on the
Accumulating Tower. At the very top I bent over the glass railing
of an opening in the Tower. Below people seemed like dots; my heart
contracted sweetly. "What if...." On that occasion I only clenched
my hands around the railing; now I jumped over.
"So you desire ... being perfectly aware that ..."
Her eyes were closed as if the sun were beating straight into her
face. A wet, shining smile!
"Yes, yes! I want it!"
Quickly I took out the pink check of the other from under the
manuscript and down I went to the controller on duty. O-90 caught
my hand, screamed out something, but what it was I understood only
later, when I returned.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands firmly clasped about
the knees.
"Is it, is it her check?"
"What does it matter? Well, it is hers, yes."
Something cracked. It must have been the springs of the bed, for
O-90 made a slight motion only. She remained sitting, her hands upon
her knees.
"Well, quick...." I roughly pressed her hand. A red spot was left
on her wrist (tomorrow it would become purple), where the fluffy,
infantile fold.... It was the last.... I turned the switch, my
thoughts went out with the light. Darkness, a spark! and I had
jumped over the railing, down....