"Quickly! Please! Quickly! ... into your office.... I must tell
everything ... right away.... I am glad that you.... It may be
terrible that it should be you to whom.... But it is well, it is
well...."
He too, knew _her_; this made it even more tormenting for me. But
perhaps he too, would tremble when he should hear.... And we would
both be killing.... And I would not be alone at that, my supreme
second....
The door closed with a slam. I remember a piece of paper was
caught beneath the door and it rustled on the floor when the
door closed. And then a strange airless silence covered us as if
a glass bell were put over us. If only he had uttered a single,
most insignificant word, no matter what, I should have told him
everything at once. But he was silent. So keyed up that I heard a
noise in my ears, I said without looking at him:
"I think I always hated her from the very beginning.... I
struggled.... Or, no, no, don't believe me; I could have but I did
not want to save myself; I wanted to perish; this was dearer to
me than anything else ... and even now, even this minute, when I
know already everything.... Do you know that I was summoned to the
Well-Doer?"
"Yes, I do."
"But what he told me! Please realize that it was equivalent to ...
it was as if some one should remove the floor from under you this
minute, and you and all here on the desk, the papers, the ink ...
the ink would splash out and cover everything with blots...."
"What else? What further? Hurry up, others are waiting!"
Then stumbling, muttering, I told him everything that is recorded
in these pages.... About my real self, and about my hairy self, and
about my hands ... yes ... exactly that was the beginning. And
how I would not do my duty then, and how I lied to myself, and how
she obtained false certificates for me, and how I grew worse and
worse, every day, and about the long corridors underground, and
there beyond the Wall....
All this I threw out in formless pieces and lumps. I would stutter
and fail to find words. The lips double-curved in a smile would
prompt me with the word I needed and I would nod gratefully: "Yes,
yes!".... Suddenly, what was it? He was talking for me and I only
listened and nodded: "Yes, yes," and then, "Yes, exactly so, ...
yes, yes...."
I felt cold around my mouth as though it were wet with ether, and I
asked with difficulty:
"But how is it.... You could not learn anywhere...."
He smiled a smile growing more and more curved; then:
"But I see that you do want to conceal from me something. For
example, you enumerated everything you saw beyond the Wall but you
failed to mention one thing. You deny it? But don't you remember
that once, just in passing, just for a second you saw me there? Yes,
yes _me_!"
Silence.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, it became shamelessly clear to
me: he--he too--. And all myself, my torment, all that I brought
here, crushed by the burden, plucking up my last strength as if
performing a great feat, all appeared to me only funny,--like the
ancient anecdote about Abraham and Isaac; Abraham all in a cold
sweat, with the knife already raised over his son, over himself--and
suddenly a voice from above: "Never mind.... I was only joking."
Without taking my eyes from the smile which grew more and more
curved, I put my hands on the edge of the desk and slowly, very
slowly pushed myself with my chair away from him. Then instantly
gathering myself into my own hands, I dashed madly out, past loud
voices, past steps and mouths....
I do not remember how I got into one of the public rest-rooms at a
station of the Underground Railway. Above, everything was perishing;
the greatest civilization, the most rational in human history was
crumbling,--but here, by some irony everything remained as before,
beautiful. The walls shone; water murmured cosily and like the
water,--the unseen, transparent music.... Only think of it! All this
is doomed; all this will be covered with grass, some day; only myths
will remain....
I moaned aloud. At the same instant I felt someone gently patting
my knee. It was from the left; it was my neighbor who occupied a
seat on my left,--an enormous forehead, a bald parabola, yellow
unintelligible lines of wrinkles on his forehead, those lines about
me.
"I understand you. I understand completely," he said. "Yet you must
calm yourself. You must. It will return. It will inevitably return.
It is only important that everybody should learn of my discovery.
You are the first to whom I talk about it. I have calculated that
there is no _infinity_! No!"