The Benumbed Waves
Everything Is Improving
I Am a Microbe
Please imagine that you stand at the seashore. The waves go
rhythmically up, down, up.... Suddenly when they have risen they
remain in that position, benumbed, torpid! It was just as weird
and unnatural when everything became confused and our regular walk
which is prescribed by the Tables, suddenly came to an end. The
last time such a thing happened was 119 years ago, when according
to our historians a meteorite fell hissing and fuming into the
very midst of the marchers. We were walking yesterday as usual,
that is like warriors on the Assyrian monuments, a thousand heads
and two composite, integrated legs and two swinging integrated
arms. At the end of the avenue where the Accumulating Tower was
formidably resounding, a quadrangle appeared: on the sides, in
front and behind--guards; in the centre three Numbers. Their unifs
were already stripped of the golden State badges; everything was
painfully clear. The enormous dial on the top of the Tower looked
like a face; it bent down from the clouds and spitting down its
seconds, it waited with indifference. It showed six minutes past
thirteen exactly. There was some confusion in the quadrangle. I was
very close and I saw the most minute details. I clearly remember
a thin, long neck and on the temple a confused net of small blue
veins like rivers on the map of a small unfamiliar world, and that
unknown world was apparently still a very young man. He evidently
noticed someone in our ranks; he stopped, rose upon his tip-toes
and stretched his neck. One of the guards snapped his back with
the bluish spark of the electric whip--he squealed in a thin voice
like a puppy. The distinct snaps followed each other at intervals
of approximately two seconds; a snap and a squeal, a snap and a
squeal.... We continued to walk as usual, rhythmically, in our
Assyrian manner. I watched the graceful zigzags of the electric
sparks and thought: "Human society is constantly improving, as it
should. How ugly a tool was the ancient whip and how much beauty
there is--"
At that moment, like a nut flying from a wheel revolving at full
speed, a female Number, thin, flexible and tense, tore herself
from our rows, and with a cry, "Enough! Don't you dare!" she threw
herself straight into the quadrangle. It was like the meteorite of
119 years ago; our march came to a standstill and our rows appeared
like the gray crests of waves frozen by sudden cold. For a second
I looked at that woman's figure with the eye of a stranger as all
the others did. She was no Number any longer; she was only a human
being and she existed for us only as a substantiation of the insult
which she cast upon the United State. But a motion of hers, her
bending while twisting to the left upon her hips, revealed to me
clearly who she was. I knew, I knew that body, flexible as a whip!
My eyes, my lips, my hands knew it; at that moment I was absolutely
certain.... Two of the guards dashed to catch her. One more moment
and that limpid mirror-like point on the pavement would have become
the point of meeting of their trajectories, and she would have been
caught! My heart fell, stopped. Without thinking whether it was
permissible or not, whether it was reasonable or absurd, I threw
myself straight to that point.
I felt thousands of eyes bulging with horror fixed upon me but that
only added a sort of desperately joyful power to that wild being
with hairy paws which arose in me and ran faster and faster. Two
more steps--she turned around--
I saw a quivering face covered with freckles, red eyebrows.... It
was not she! Not I-330!
A rabid, quivering joy took hold of me. I wanted to shout something
like: "Catch her! Get her, that--" But I heard only my whisper. A
heavy hand was already upon my shoulder; I was caught and led away.
I tried to explain to them:
"But listen, you must understand that I thought that...."
But could I explain even to myself all the sickness which I have
described in these pages? My light went out; I waited obediently. As
a leaf that is torn from its branch by a sudden gust of wind falls
humbly, but on its way down turns and tries to catch every little
branch, every fork, every knot; so I tried to catch every one of the
silent, globe-like heads, or the transparent ice of the walls, or
the blue needle of the Accumulating Tower which seemed to pierce the
clouds.
At that moment, when a heavy curtain was about to separate from me
this beautiful world, I noticed not far away a familiar, enormous
head gliding over the mirror surface of the pavement and wagging its
wing-like ears. I heard a familiar, flat voice:
"I deem it my duty to testify that Number D-503 is ill and is unable
to regulate his emotions. Moreover, I am sure that he was led by
natural indignation--"
"Yes! Yes!" I exclaimed, "I even shouted 'catch her!'"