_The day._
Quick, to the newspaper! perhaps there.... I read the paper with
my eyes (exactly; my eyes now are like a pen, or like a counting
machine which you hold and feel in your hands like a tool, something
foreign, an instrument). In the newspaper on the first page, in
large print:
"THE ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS ARE AWAKE! HOLD TO YOUR HAPPINESS WITH
BOTH HANDS. TOMORROW ALL WORK WILL STOP AND ALL THE NUMBERS ARE TO
COME TO BE OPERATED UPON. THOSE WHO FAIL TO COME WILL BE SUBMITTED
TO THE MACHINE OF THE WELL-DOER."
Tomorrow! How can there be, how can there be any tomorrow?
Following my daily habit, I stretched out my arm (instrument!)
to the bookshelf to put today's paper with the rest in a cover
ornamented with gold. While doing this: "What for? What does it
matter? Never again shall I.... In this cover, never...." And out of
my hands, down to the floor it fell.
I stood looking all around, over all my room; hastily I was taking
away, feverishly putting into some unseen valise everything I
regretted leaving here: my desk, my books, my chair. Upon that chair
sat I-330 that day; I was below on the floor.... My bed.... Then
for a minute or two I stood and waited for some miracle to happen;
perhaps the telephone would ring, perhaps she would say that.... But
no, no miracle....
I am leaving, going into the unknown. These are my last lines.
Farewell you, my unknown beloved ones, with whom I have lived
through so many pages, before whom I have bared my diseased soul,
my whole self to the last broken little screw, to the last cracked
spring.... I am going....