The Great Operation
I Forgave Everything
The Collision of Trains
Saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was
nothing to hold to, that it was the end!...
It was as if you already ascended the steps towards the threatening
machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy
thud already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked
at the blue sky to swallow it with your eyes ... when suddenly, it
was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall ... what
happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To
delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in
the white pillow!... This is approximately what I felt, when I read
the State Journal this morning. It has been all a terrible dream
and this dream is over. And I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that I
thought of selfish, voluntary death! I am ashamed now to reread the
last lines of yesterday. But let them remain as a memory of that
incredible might-have-happened, which will not happen! On the front
page of the State Journal the following gleamed:
"REJOICE!
"For from now on we are _perfect!_
"Before today your own creation, engines, were more perfect than
you.
"WHY?
"For every spark from a dynamo--is a spark of pure reason; each
motion of a piston--a pure syllogism. Is it not true that the same
faultless reason is within you?
"The philosophy of the cranes, presses, and pumps is finished
and clear like a circle. But is your philosophy less circular?
The beauty of a mechanism lies in its immutable, precise rhythm,
like that of a pendulum. But have you not become as precise as a
pendulum, you who are brought up on the system of Taylor?
"Yes, but there is one difference:
"MECHANISMS HAVE NO FANCY
"Did you ever notice a pump cylinder during its work show upon its
face a wide, distant, sensuously-dreaming smile? Did you ever hear
cranes restlessly toss about and sigh at night, during the hours
designed for rest?
"NO!
"Yet on your faces (you may well blush with shame!), the Guardians
have seen more and more frequently those smiles and they have
heard your sighs. And (you should hide your eyes for shame!) the
historians of the United State all tendered their resignations so as
to be relieved from having to record such shameful occurrences.
"It is not your fault; you are ill. And the name of your illness is
"FANCY
"It is a worm that gnaws black wrinkles on one's forehead. It is a
fever that drives one to run farther and farther, albeit 'farther'
may begin where happiness ends. It is the last barricade on our road
to happiness.
"_Rejoice! This Barricade Has Been Blasted at Last! The Road is
Open!_
"The latest discovery of our State science is that there is a centre
for fancy,--a miserable little nervous knot in the lower region of
the frontal lobe of the brain. A triple treatment of this knot with
X-rays will cure you of fancy--
"_Forever!_
"You are perfect; you are mechanized; the road to hundred per-cent
happiness is open! Hasten then all of you, young and old, hasten to
undergo the great Operation! Hasten to the auditoriums where the
great Operation is being performed! Long live the Great Operation!
Long live the United State! Long live the Well-Doer."
You, had you read all this not in my records which look like an
ancient strange novel, had you like me held in your trembling hands
the newspaper, smelling of typographic ink ... if you knew as I do,
that all this is most certain reality, if not the reality of today,
then that of tomorrow,--would you not feel the very things I feel?
Would not your head whirl as mine does? Would there not run over
your back and arms those strange, sweet, icy needles? Would you not
feel that you were a giant, an Atlas?--that if only you stood up and
straightened out you would reach the ceiling with your head?