"It is inconceivable! It is absurd! Is it not clear to you that what
you are contriving is a revolution?"
"Yes, a revolution. Why is it absurd?"
"Absurd? because a revolution is impossible! Because _our_ (I speak
for myself and for you), our revolution was the last one. No other
revolutions may occur. Everybody knows that."
A mocking, sharp triangle of brows.
"My dear, you are a mathematician, are you not? More than that, a
philosopher-mathematician? Well then, name the last number!"
"What is ... I ... I cannot understand, which _last_?"
"The last one, the highest, the largest."
"But I-330, it is absurd! Since the number of numbers is infinite,
how can there be a last one?"
"And why then do you think there is a _last_ revolution? There is
no last revolution, their number is infinite.... The 'last one' is
a children's story. Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is
necessary that children should not be frightened, so that they may
sleep through the night."
"But what is the use, what is the use of it all? For the sake of the
Well-Doer! What is the use since all are happy already?"
"All right! Even suppose that is so. What further?"
"How funny! A purely childish question. You tell something to
children, come to the very end, yet they will invariably ask you,
'what further?' and 'what for?'"
"Children are the only courageous philosophers. And courageous
philosophers are invariably children. One ought always to ask like
children, 'what further'?"
"Nothing further! Period. In the whole world evenly, everywhere,
there is distributed...."
"Ah, 'evenly!' 'Everywhere!' That is the point, entropy!
Psychological entropy. Don't you as a mathematician know that only
differences (only differences!), in temperature, only thermic
contrasts make for life? And if all over the world there are evenly
warm or evenly cold bodies, they must be pushed off! ... in order
to get flame, explosions! And we shall push!..."
"But I-330, please realize that our ancestors during the Two Hundred
Years' War did exactly that!"
"Oh, they were right! A thousand times right! They did one wrong
thing, however; later they began to believe that they were the _last
number_, a number that does not exist in nature. Their mistake was
the mistake of Galileo; he was right in that the earth revolves
about the sun but he did not know that our whole solar system
revolves about some other centre, he did not know that the real (not
relative) orbit of the earth is not a naive circle."
"And you, the Mephi?"
"We? For the time being we know that there is no _last_ number. We
may forget that some day. Of course, we shall certainly forget it
when we grow old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall
inevitably fall like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the
day-after-tomorrow.... No, no dear, not you personally. You are with
us, are you not? You are with us?"
Flaming, stormy, sparkling! I never before had seen her in such a
state. She embraced me with her whole self; I disappeared.
Her last word, looking steadily, deeply into my eyes:
"Then, do not forget: at twelve o'clock sharp."
And I answered:
"Yes, I remember."
She left. I was alone amidst a rebellious, multi-voiced commotion of
blue, red, green, saffron-yellow and orange....
Yes, at twelve!... Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on
my face, of something implanted, that could not be brushed off.
Suddenly, yesterday morning, and U- and all she shouted into the
face of I-330! Why, how absurd!
I hastened to get out of the house and home, home! Somewhere behind
me I heard the chattering of birds beyond the Wall. And ahead of me
in the setting sun the balls of cupolas made of red, crystallized
fire, enormous flaming cubes--houses, and the sharp point of the
Accumulating Tower high in the sky like a paralyzed streak of
lightning. And all this, all this impeccable, most geometric beauty,
shall I, I myself, with my hands...? Is there no way out? No path?
No trail?
I passed by an auditorium (I do not recall its number). Inside, the
benches were stacked along the walls. In the middle, tables covered
with snow-white glass sheets, with pink stains of sunny blood on
the white.... There was foreshadowed in all that some unknown and
therefore alarming tomorrow. It is unnatural for a thinking and
seeing human being to live among irregularities, unknowns, X's. If
suddenly your eyes were covered with a bandage and you were let go
to feel around, to stumble, ever aware that somewhere very close
to you there is the border-line, one step only and nothing but a
compressed, smothered piece of flesh will be left of you.... I now
feel somewhat like that.
... And what if without waiting for anything I should ... just head
down.... Would it not be the only right thing to do? To disentangle
everything at once?