The Limit of the Function
Easter
To Cross Out Everything
I am like a motor set in motion at a speed of too many revolutions
per second, the bearings have become too hot and in one more minute
the molten metal will begin to drip and everything will go to the
devil. Cold water! Quick! Some logic! I pour pailfuls of it, but my
logic merely sizzles on the hot metal and disappears in the air in
the form of vapor.
Of course it is clear that in order to establish the true meaning
of a function, one must establish its limit. It is also clear that
yesterday's "dissolution in the universe" taken to its limit is
death. For death is exactly the most complete dissolution of the
self in the universe. Hence: L=f(D), love is the function of
death.
Yes, exactly, exactly! That is why I am afraid of I-330; I struggle
against her, I don't want.... But why is it that within me "I don't
want to" and "I want to" stand side by side? That is the chief
horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of
yesterday. The horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated
the logical function, when it becomes evident that the latter
contains death hidden in it, nevertheless I long for it with my
lips, arms, breast, with every millimeter....
Tomorrow is the Day of Unanimity. She will certainly be there and I
shall see her, though from a distance. That distance will be painful
to me, for I must be, I am inevitably drawn, close to her, so that
her hands, her shoulder, her hair.... I long for even that pain....
Let it come.... Great Well-Doer! How absurd to desire pain! Who is
ignorant of the simple fact that pains are negative items which
reduce that sum total we call happiness? Consequently ... Well, no
"consequently" ... Emptiness.... Nakedness!
_The Same Evening._
Through the glass wall of the house I see a disquieting, windy,
feverishly pink, sunset. I move my armchair to avoid that pinkness
and turn over these pages, and I find I am forgetting that I write
this not for myself but for you unknown people whom I love and pity,
for you who still lag centuries behind, below. Let me tell you about
the Day of Unanimity, about that Great Day. I think that day for us
is what Easter was for the ancients. I remember I used to prepare an
hour-calendar the eve of that day; solemnly I would cross out every
time the figure of the hour elapsed; nearer by one hour! one hour
less to wait!... If I were certain that nobody would discover it, I
assure you I should now too, make out such a calendar and carry it
with me, and I should watch how many hours remain until tomorrow,
when I shall see, at least from a distance....
(I was interrupted. They brought me a new unif from the shop. As is
customary, new unifs are given to us for tomorrow's celebration.
Steps in the hall, exclamations of joy, noises.)
I shall continue; tomorrow I shall see the same spectacle which we
see year after year and which always awakes in us fresh emotions,
as though we saw it for the first time: an impressive throng of
piously lifted arms. Tomorrow is the day of the yearly election of
the Well-Doer. Tomorrow we shall again hand over to our Well-Doer
the keys to the impregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly
this in no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election-days
of the ancients, on which (it seems so funny!) they did not even
know in advance the result of the election. To build a state on some
non-discountable contingencies, to build blindly,--what could be
more nonsensical? Yet centuries were required to pass before this
was understood!
Needless to say, we in this respect as in all others have no place
for contingencies; nothing unexpected can happen. The elections
themselves have rather a symbolic meaning. They remind us that we
are a united, powerful organism of millions of cells, that--, to
use the language of the "gospel" of the ancients, we are a united
church. The history of the United State knows not a single case
in which upon this solemn day even a solitary voice has dared to
violate the magnificent unison.
They say that the ancients used to conduct their elections secretly,
stealthily like thieves. Some of our historians assert even that
they would come to the electoral celebrations completely masked.
Imagine the weird, fantastic spectacle! Night. A plaza. Along the
walls the stealthily creeping figures covered with mantles. The
red flame of torches dancing in the wind.... Why was such secrecy
necessary? It has never been satisfactorily explained. Probably it
resulted from the fact that elections were associated with some
mystic and superstitious, perhaps even criminal ceremonies. We have
nothing to conceal or to be ashamed of; we celebrate our election
openly, honestly, in daylight. I see them all vote for the Well-Doer
and everybody sees me vote for the Well-Doer. How could it be
otherwise, since "all" and "I" are one "we"? How ennobling, sincere,
lofty, is this compared with the cowardly, thievish "secrecy" of the
ancients! Moreover, how much more expedient! For even admitting for
a moment the impossible, that is the outbreak of some dissonance in
our customary unity, in that case our unseen Guardians are always
right there among us, are they not, to register the Numbers who
would fall into error and save them from any further false steps?
The United State is theirs, the Numbers'! And besides....
Through the wall to my left a she-number before the mirror-door
of the closet; she is hastily unbuttoning her unif. For a second,
swiftly--eyes, lips, two sharp, pink ... the curtains fell. Within
me instantly awoke all that happened yesterday and now I no longer
know what I meant to say by "besides...." I no longer wish to;--I
cannot. I want one thing. I want I-330. I want her every minute,
every second, to be with me, with no one else. All that I wrote
about Unanimity is of no value; it is not what I want; I have a
desire to cross it out, to tear it to pieces and throw it away. For
I know (be it a sacrilege, yet it is the truth), that a glorious Day
is possible only with her and only then when we are side by side,
shoulder to shoulder. Without her the Sun of tomorrow will appear
to me only as a little circle cut out of a tin sheet, and the sky a
sheet of tin painted blue, and I myself ... I snatched the telephone
receiver.
"I-330, are you there?"
"Yes, it is I. Why so late?"
"Perhaps not too late yet. I want to ask you ... I want you to be
with me tomorrow--dear!"
"Dear" I said in a very low voice. And for some reason a thing I
saw this morning at the docks flashed through my mind: just for
fun someone put a watch under the hundred-ton sledge-hammer....
A swing, a breath of wind in the face and the silent hundred-ton,
knife-like weight on the breakable watch....
A silence. I thought I heard someone's whisper in I-330's room. Then
her voice:
"No, I cannot. Of course you understand that I myself.... No, I
cannot. 'Why?' You shall see tomorrow."
Night.