The Descent from Heaven
The Greatest Catastrophe in History
The Known--Is Ended
At the beginning all arose, and the hymn, like a solemn mantle,
slowly waved above our heads. Hundreds of tubes of the Musical Tower
and millions of human voices. For a second I forgot everything; I
forgot that alarming something at which I-330 hinted in connection
with today's celebration; I think I even forgot about her. At that
moment I was the very same little boy who once wept because of a
tiny ink-stain on his unif, which no one else could see. Even if it
be so, if nobody sees that I am covered with black, ineffaceable
stains, I know it, do I not? I know that there should be no place
for a criminal like me among these frank open faces. What if I
should rush forward and shout out all at once everything about
myself! The end might follow. Let it! At least for a second I would
feel myself clear and clean and senseless like that innocent blue
sky....
All eyes were directed upward; in the pure morning blue, still moist
with the tears of night, a small dark spot appeared. Now it was
dark, now bathed in the rays of the sun. It was He, descending to
us from the sky, He--the new Jehovah--in an aero, He, as wise and as
lovingly cruel as the Jehovah of the ancients. Nearer and nearer,
and higher toward him were drawn millions of hearts. Already he
saw us. And in my mind with Him I looked over everything from the
heights: concentric circles of stands marked with dotted blue lines
of unifs,--like circles of a spider-web strewn with microscopic suns
(the shining of the badges). And in the centre there soon the wise
white spider would occupy his place--the Well-Doer clad in white,
the Well-Doer who wisely tangled our hands and feet in the salutary
net of happiness.
His magnificent descent from the sky was accomplished. The brassy
Hymn came to silence; all sat down. At once I perceived that
everything was really a very thin spider-web, the threads of which
were stretched tense and trembling, and it seemed that in a moment
those threads might break and something improbable....
I half rose and looked around, and I met many lovingly-worried eyes
which passed from one face to another. I saw someone lifting his
hand and almost imperceptibly waving his fingers--he was making
signs to another. The latter replied with a similar finger-sign. And
a third.... I understood; they were the Guardians. I understood;
they were alarmed by something--the spider-web was stretched and
trembling. And within me as if tuned to the same wave-length of a
radio, within me there was a corresponding quiver.
On the platform a poet was reciting his pre-electoral ode. I could
not hear a single word; I only felt the rhythmic swing of the
hexametric pendulum, and with its every motion I felt how nearer and
nearer there was approaching some hour set for.... I continued to
turn over face after face like pages but I could not find the one,
the only one, I was seeking, the one I needed to find at once, as
soon as possible, for one more swing of the pendulum and....
It was he, certainly it was he! Below, past the main platform,
gliding over the sparkling glass, the ear-wings flapped by, the
running body gave a reflection of a double-curved S-, like a noose
which was rolling toward some of the intricate passages among the
stands. S-, I-330,--there is some thread between them. I have always
felt some thread between them. I don't know yet what that thread is
but some day I shall untangle it. I planted my gaze on him; he was
rushing farther away, behind him that invisible thread.... There he
stopped ... there.... I was pierced, twisted together into a knot as
if by a lightning-like, many-volted electric discharge; in my row,
not more than 40° from me, S- stopped and bowed. I saw I-330 and
beside her the smiling, repellent, negro-lipped R-13.
My first thought was to rush to her and cry, "Why with him? Why did
you not want...?" But the salutary invisible spider-web bound fast
my hands and feet; so, gritting my teeth together I sat stiff as
iron, my gaze fixed upon them. A sharp _physical_ pain at my heart.
I remember my thought: "if non-physical causes effect physical pain,
then it is clear that...."
I regret that I did not come to any conclusion. I remember only that
something about "soul" flashed through my mind, a purely nonsensical
ancient expression, "His soul fell into his boots" passed through my
head. My heart sank. The hexameter came to an end. It was about to
start. What "It"?
The five minute pre-election recess established by custom. The
custom-established pre-electional silence. But now it was not that
pious, really prayer-like silence that it usually was. Now it was
as in the ancient days when there were no Accumulating Towers,
when the sky, still untamed in those days, would roar from time to
time with its "storms." It was like the "lull before the storm"
of the ancient days. The air seemed to be made of transparent,
vaporized cast-iron. One wanted to breathe with one's mouth wide
open. My hearing, intense to painfulness, registered from behind a
mouse-like, gnawing, worried whisper. Without lifting my eyes I saw
those two, I-330 and R-13, side by side, shoulder to shoulder,--and
on my knees my trembling, foreign, hateful, hairy hands....
Everybody was holding a badge with a clock in his hands. One....
Two.... Three.... Five minutes. From the main platform a cast-iron,
slow voice:
"Those in favor shall lift their hands."
If only I dared to look straight into his eyes as formerly! Straight
and devotedly, and think: "Here I am, my whole self! Take me!" But
now I did not dare. I had to make an effort to raise my hand, as if
my joints were rusty.
A whisper of millions of hands. Someone's subdued "Ah!" and I felt
something was coming, falling heavily, but I could not understand
what it was, and I did not have the strength or courage to take a
look....
"Those opposed?"...
This was always the most magnificent moment of our celebration: all
would remain sitting motionless, joyfully bowing their heads under
the salutary yoke of that Number of Numbers. But now, to my horror
again I heard a rustle; light as a sigh, yet it was more distinct
even than the brass tube of the Hymn. Thus the last sigh in a man's
life, around him people with their faces pale and with drops of cold
sweat upon their foreheads.... I lifted my eyes and....
It took one hundredth of a second only; I saw thousands of hands
arise "opposed" and fall back. I saw the pale cross-marked face of
I-330 and her lifted hand. Darkness came upon my eyes.
Another hundredth of a second, silence. Quiet. The pulse. Then, as
if at the sign of some mad conductor, from all the stands rattling,
shouting, a whirlwind of unifs lifted by the rush, the perplexed
figures of the Guardians running to and fro. Someone's heels in
the air near my eyes and close to those heels someone's wide-open
mouth tearing itself by an inaudible scream. For some reason this
picture remains particularly distinct in my memory: thousands of
mouths noiselessly yelling as if on the screen of a monstrous
cinema. Also as if on a screen, somewhere below at a distance, for a
second--O-90, pressed against the wall in a passage, her lips white,
defending her abdomen with her crossed arms. She disappeared as if
washed away by a wave, or else I simply forgot her because....
This not on the screen any more but within me, within my compressed
heart, within the rapidly pulsating temples; over my head, somewhat
to the left, R-13 suddenly jumped upon a bench, all sprinkling, red,
rabid. In his arms was I-330, pale, her unif torn from shoulder to
breast, red blood on white. She firmly held him round the neck, and
he with huge leaps from bench to bench, repellent and agile, like a
gorilla, was carrying her away upward.
As if it were in a fire of ancient days, everything became red
around me. Only one thing in my head: to jump after them, to catch
them. At this moment I cannot explain to myself the source of that
strength within me, but like a battering-ram I broke through the
crowd, over somebody's shoulders, over a bench and I was there in a
moment and caught R-13 by the collar:
"Don't you dare! Don't you dare, I say! Immediately--"
Fortunately no one could hear my voice, as everyone was shouting and
running.
"Who is it? What is the matter? What--" R-13 turned around; his
sprinkling lips were trembling. He apparently thought it was one of
the Guardians.
"What? I do not want--I won't allow--Put her down at once!"
But he only sprinkled angrily with his lips, shook his head and ran
on. Then I ... I am terribly ashamed to write all this down but I
believe I must, so that you, my unknown readers, may make a complete
study of my disease.... Then I hit him over the head with all my
might. You understand? I hit him. This I remember distinctly. I
remember also a feeling of liberation that followed my action, a
feeling of lightness in my whole body.
I-330 slid quickly out of his arms.
"Go away!" she shouted to R-, "Don't you see that he--? Go!"
R-13 showed his white negro teeth, sprinkled into my face some word,
dived down and disappeared. And I picked up I-330, pressed her
firmly to myself and carried her away.
My heart was beating forcibly. It seemed enormous. And with every
beat it would splash out such a thundering, such a hot, such a
joyful wave! A flash: "Let them, below there, let them toss and rush
and yell and fall; what matter if something has fallen, if something
has been shattered to dust?-- Little matter! Only to remain this way
and carry her, carry and carry...."
_The Same Evening, Twenty-two o'Clock._
I hold my pen with great difficulty. Such an extraordinary fatigue
after all the dizzying events of this morning. Is it possible that
the strong, salutary, centuries-old walls of the United State have
fallen? Is it possible that we are again without a roof over our
heads, back in the wild state of freedom like our remote ancestors?
Is it possible that we have lost our Well-Doer? "Opposed!" On the
Day of Unanimity--opposed! I am ashamed of _them_, painfully,
fearfully ashamed.... But who are "they"? And who am I? "They,"
"We"...? Do I know?