"Never, never will I forgive myself! She dared! You ... but you
don't think, do you, that you, that she.... This is all because she
wants to register on me but I...."
"Fortunately she will not have time for that now. Besides, even a
thousand like her.... I don't care.... I know you will not believe
that thousand but only me. For after all that happened yesterday, I
am all yours, all, to the very end, as you wanted it. I am in your
hands; you can now at any moment...."
"What, 'at any moment?'" (But at once I understood what. My blood
rushed to my ears and cheeks.) "Don't speak about that, you must
never speak about that! The _other_ I, my former self ... but
now...."
"How do I know? Man is like a novel: up to the last page one does
not know what the end will be. It would not be worth reading
otherwise."
She was stroking my head. I could not see her face but I could
tell by her voice that she was looking somewhere very far into
the distance; she hooked herself to that cloud which was floating
silently, slowly, no one knows where to.
Suddenly she pushed me away with her hand, firmly but tenderly.
"Listen. I came to tell you that perhaps we are now ... our last
days.... You know, don't you, that all Auditoriums are to be closed
after tonight?"
"Closed?"
"Yes. I passed by and saw that in all Auditoriums preparations are
going on: tables; medics all in white...."
"But what does it all mean?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows as yet. That is the worst of it. I only
feel the current is on, the spark is jumping, and if not today, then
tomorrow.... Yet perhaps they will not have time...."
For a long while I have ceased to understand who are _they_ and who
_we_. I do not understand what I want; do I want them to have or not
to have enough time? One thing is clear to me: I-330 is now on the
very edge, on the very edge, and in one second more....
"But it is folly," I said. "You, versus the United State! It is the
same as if you should cover the muzzle of a gun with your hands and
expect that way to prevent the shot.... It is absolute folly!"
A smile.
"'We must all go insane,--as soon as possible go insane.' It was
yesterday, do you remember?"
Yes, she was right; I had even written it down. Consequently it
really took place. In silence I looked into her face. At that moment
the dark cross was especially distinct.
"I-, dear, before it is too late.... If you want ... I'll leave
everything, I'll forget everything, and we'll go there beyond the
Wall, to _them_.... I do not even know who they are...."
She shook her head. Through the dark windows of her eyes I saw
within her a flaming oven, sparks, tongues of flame and above them a
heap of dry, tarry wood. It was clear to me that it was too late, my
words could be of no avail.
She stood up. She would soon leave. Perhaps these were the last
days, or the last minutes.... I grasped her hand.
"No, stay a little while longer ... for the sake ... for the
sake...."
She slowly lifted my hand towards the light, my hairy paw which I
detest. I wanted to withdraw it but she held it tightly.
"Your hand.... You undoubtedly don't know and very few do know,
that women from here occasionally used to fall in love with _them_.
Probably there are in you a few drops of that blood of the sun and
the woods. Perhaps that is why I...."
Silence. It was so strange that because of that silence, because of
an emptiness, of nothing, my heart should beat so wildly. I cried.
"Ah, you shall not go yet! You shall not go until you tell me about
_them_ ... for you love ... them, and I do not know even who they
are, nor where they come from."
"Who are they? The half we have lost. H2 and O, two halves; but
in order to get water, H2O, creeks, seas, waterfalls, storms, it
is necessary that those two halves be united."
I distinctly remember every movement of hers. I remember she picked
up a glass triangle from my table and while talking she pressed its
sharp edge against her cheek; a white scar would appear; then it
would fill again and become pink and disappear. And it is strange
that I cannot remember her words, especially the beginning of the
story. I remember only different images and colors. At first,
I remember, she told me about the Two Hundred Years' War. Red
color.... On the green of the grass, on the dark clay, on the
pale blue of the snow,--everywhere red ditches that would not
become dry. Then yellow; yellow grass burned by the sun, yellow
naked wild-men and wild dogs side by side near swollen cadavers
of dogs or perhaps of men. All this, certainly beyond the Walls,
for the City was already the victor and it possessed already our
present-day petroleum food. And at night ... down from the sky
... heavy black folds. The folds would swing over the woods, the
villages,--blackish-red slow columns of smoke. A dull moaning;
endless strings of people driven into the City to be saved by force
and to be whipped into happiness.
"... You knew almost all this."
"Yes, almost."
"But you did not know and only a few did, that a small part of them
remained together and stayed to live beyond the Wall. Being naked,
they went into the woods. They learned there from the trees, beasts,
birds, flowers and sun. Hair soon grew over their bodies, but under
that hair they preserved their warm red blood. With you it was
worse; numbers covered your bodies; numbers crawled over you like
lice. One ought to strip you of everything, and naked you ought to
be driven into the woods. You ought to learn how to tremble with
fear, with joy, with wild anger, with cold; you should pray to fire!
And we Mephi, we want...."
"Oh, wait a minute! 'Mephi,' what does it mean!"
"Mephi? It is from Mephisto. You remember, there on the rock, the
figure of the youth? Or, no. I shall explain it to you in your own
language and you will understand better: there are two forces in
the world, entropy and energy. One leads into blessed quietude, to
happy equilibrium, the other to the destruction of equilibrium,
to torturingly perpetual motion. Our, or rather your ancestors,
the Christians, worshipped entropy like a God. But we are not
Christians, we...."
At that moment a slight whisper was suddenly heard, a knock at the
door, and in rushed that flattened man with the forehead low over
his eyes, who several times had brought me notes from I-330. He ran
straight to us, stopped, panting like an air-pump, and could say not
a word, as he must have been running at top speed.
"But tell me! What has happened?" I-330 grasped him by the hand.
"They are coming here,--" panted the air-pump, "with guards.... And
with them that what's-his-name, the hunchback...."
"S-?"
"Yes. They are in the house by this time. They'll soon be here.
Quick, quick!"
"Nonsense, we have time!" I-330 was laughing, cheerful sparks in her
eyes. It was either absurd, senseless courage, or else there was
something I did not yet understand.
"I-, dear, for the sake of the Well-Doer! You must understand that
this...."
"For the sake of the Well-Doer!" The sharp, triangle-smile.
"Well ... well, for my sake, I implore you!"
"Oh, yes, I wanted to talk to you about some other matters.... Well,
never mind.... We'll talk about them tomorrow."
And cheerfully (yes cheerfully) she nodded to me; the other came out
for a second from under his forehead's awning and nodded also. I was
alone.
Quick! To my desk! I opened this manuscript, took the pen so that
they should find me at this work which is for the benefit of
the United State. Suddenly I felt every hair on my head living,
separated, moving: "What if they should read, even one page of these
most recently written?"
Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to
be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms
suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls
trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing
together. "To hide them! But where?" Glass all around. "To burn
them?" But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in
the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to
destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self....
Voices from a distance (from the corridor) and steps. I had only
time to snatch a handful of pages and put them under me, and then as
if soldered to the armchair, every atom of which was quivering, I
remained sitting, while the floor under my feet rolled like the deck
of a ship, up and down....
All shrunk together and hidden under the awning of my own forehead
like that messenger, I watched them stealthily; they were going from
room to room, beginning at the right end of the corridor. Nearer
... nearer.... I saw that some sat in their rooms, torpid like me;
others would jump up and open their doors wide,--lucky ones! If only
I too, could....
"The Well-Doer is the most perfect fumigation humanity needs,
consequently no peristalsis in the organism of the United State
could...." I was writing this nonsense, pressing my trembling pen
hard, and lower and lower my head bent over the table, and within me
some sort of crazy forge.... With my back I was listening ... and
I heard the click of the door-knob.... A current of fresh air....
My armchair was dancing a mad dance.... Only then, and even then
with difficulty, I tore myself away from the page, turned my head
in the direction of the newcomers (how difficult it is to play
a foul game!). In front of all was S-, morose, silent, swiftly
drilling with his eyes deep shafts within me, within my armchair
and within the pages which were twitching in my hands. Then for a
second--familiar, everyday faces at the door; one of them separated
itself from the rest with its bulging, pinkish-brown gills....
At once I recalled everything that happened in the same room half an
hour ago and it was clear to me that they would presently....
All my being was shriveling and pulsating in that fortunately opaque
part of my body with which I was covering the manuscript. U- came up
to S-, gently plucked his sleeve and said in a low voice:
"This is D-503, the builder of the _Integral_. You have probably
heard of him. He is always like that, at his desk; does not spare
himself at all!"
... And I thought!... What a dear, wonderful woman!...
S- slid up to me, bent over my shoulder toward the table. I covered
the lines I had written with my elbow but he shouted severely:
"Show us at once what you have there, please!"
Dying with shame, I held out the sheet of paper. He read it over,
and I noticed a tiny smile jump out of his eyes, jump down his face
and slightly wagging its tail, perch upon the right angle of his
mouth....
"Somewhat ambiguous, yet.... Well, you may continue; we shall not
disturb you any more."
He went splashing towards the door as if in a ditch of water. And
with every step of his I felt coming back to me my legs, my arms,
my fingers,--my soul again distributed itself evenly over my whole
body; I breathed....
The last thing: U- lingered in my room to come back to me and say in
my very ear in a whisper: "It is lucky for you that I...."
I did not understand. What did she mean by that? The same evening I
learned that they led away three Numbers, although nobody speaks out
loud about that, or about anything that happened. This ostensible
silence is due to the educational influence of the Guardians who are
ever present among us. Conversations deal chiefly with the quick
fall of the barometer and the forthcoming change in the weather.