The World Does Exist
Rash
Forty-one Degrees Centigrade
Morning. Through the ceiling the sky is as usual firm, round,
red-cheeked. I think I should have been less surprised had I found
above some extraordinary quadrangular sun, or people clad in
many-colored dresses made of the skins of animals, or opaque walls
of stone. Then the world, _our world_, does still exist? Or is it
only inertia? Is the generator already switched out, while the
armature is still roaring and revolving;--two more revolutions, or
three, and at the fourth will it die away?
Are you familiar with that strange state in which you wake up in
the middle of the night, open your eyes into the darkness and then
suddenly feel you are lost in the dark; you quickly, quickly begin
to feel around, to seek something familiar and solid, a wall, a
lamp, a chair? In exactly the same way I felt around, seeking in the
Journal of the United State; quickly, quickly--I found this:
"The celebration of the Day of Unanimity, long awaited by all,
took place yesterday. The same Well-Doer who so often proved his
unshakeable wisdom, was unanimously re-elected for the forty-eighth
time. The celebration was clouded by a little confusion, created by
the enemies of happiness, who by their action naturally lost the
right to be the bricks for the foundation of the renovated United
State. It is clear to everybody that to take into consideration
their votes would mean to consider as a part of a magnificent,
heroic symphony the accidental cough of a sick person who happened
to be in a concert hall."
Oh, great Sage! Is it really true that despite everything we are
saved? What objection indeed can one find to this most crystalline
syllogism? And further on a few more lines:
"Today at twelve o'clock a joint meeting of the Administrative
Bureau, Medical Bureau, and Bureau of Guardians will take place. An
important State decree is to be expected shortly."
No, the Walls still stand erect. Here they are! I can feel them. And
that strange feeling of being lost somewhere, of not knowing where
I am--that feeling is gone. I am not surprised any longer to see
the sky blue and the sun round and all the Numbers going to work as
usual....
I walked along the avenue with a particularly firm resounding step.
It seemed to me that everyone else walked exactly like me. But at
the crossing, on turning the corner, I noticed people strangely
shying away, going around the corner of a building sidewise, as if a
pipe had burst in the wall, as if cold water were spurting like a
fountain on the sidewalk and it was impossible to cross it.
Another five or ten steps and I too felt a spurt of cold water
that struck me and threw me from the sidewalk; at a height of
approximately two meters a quadrangular piece of paper was pasted to
the wall and on that sheet of paper,--unintelligible, poisonously
green letters:
_MEPHI_
And under the paper,--an S-like curved back and wing-ears shaking
with anger or emotion. His right arm lifted as high as possible, his
left arm hopelessly stretched out backward like a hurt wing, he was
trying to jump high enough to reach the paper and tear it off but he
was unable to do so. He was a fraction of an inch too short.
Probably every one of the passers-by had the same thought: "If I go
to help him, I, only one of the many, will he not think that I am
guilty of something and that I am therefore anxious to...."
I must confess, I had that thought. But remembering how many times
he had proved my real Guardian-angel and how often he had saved
me, I stepped towards him and with courage and warm assurance I
stretched out my hand and tore off the sheet. S- turned around. The
little drills sank quickly into me to the bottom and found something
there. Then he lifted his left brow, winked toward the wall where
"Mephi" had been hanging a minute ago. The tail of his little smile
twinkled even with a certain pleasure which greatly surprised me.
But why should I be surprised? A doctor always prefers a temperature
of 40°C. and a rash to the slow, languid rise of the temperature
during the period of incubation of a disease; it enables him to
determine the character of the disease. _Mephi_ broke out today on
the walls like a rash. I understood his smile.
In the passage to the underground railway, under our feet on the
clean glass of the steps again a white sheet: _Mephi_. And also on
the walls of the tunnel and on the benches and on the mirror of
the car. (Apparently pasted on in haste as some were hanging on a
slant.) Everywhere the same white gruesome rash.
I must confess that the exact meaning of that smile became clear to
me only after many days which were overfilled with the strangest and
most unexpected events.
The roaring of the wheels, distinct in the general silence, seemed
to be the noise of infected streams of blood. Some Number was
inadvertently touched on the shoulder and he started so that a
package of papers fell out of his hands. To my left another Number
was reading a paper, his eyes fixed always on the same line; the
paper perceptibly trembled in his hands. I felt that everywhere, in
the wheels, in the hands, in the newspapers, even in the eyelashes,
the pulse was becoming more and more rapid and I thought it
probable that today when I-330 and I should find ourselves _there_,
the temperature would rise to 39°, 40°, perhaps 41° and....
At the docks--the same silence filled with the buzzing of an
invisible propeller. The lathes were silent as if brooding. Only
the cranes were moving almost inaudibly as if on tip-toe, gliding,
bending over, picking up with their tentacles the lumps of frozen
air and loading the tanks of the _Integral_. We are already
preparing the _Integral_ for a trial flight.
"Well, shall we have her up in a week?" This was my question
addressed to the Second Builder. His face is like porcelain, painted
with sweet blue and tender pink little flowers (eyes and lips), but
today those little flowers looked faded and washed-out. We were
counting aloud when suddenly I broke off in the midst of a word and
stopped, my mouth wide open; above the cupola, above the blue lump
lifted by the crane, there was a scarcely noticeable small white
square. I felt my whole body trembling--perhaps with laughter.
Yes! _I myself heard_ my own laughter. (Did you ever hear your own
laughter?)
"No, listen," I said. "Imagine you are in an ancient aeroplane. The
altimeter shows 5000 meters. A wing breaks; you are dashing down
like.... And on the way you calculate: 'Tomorrow from twelve to
two ... from two to six ... and dinner at five!' Would it not be
absurd?"
The little blue flowers began to move and bulge out. What if I were
made of glass and he could have seen what was going on within me at
that moment? If he knew that some three or four hours later....