Part 10

... All night strange wings were about. I walked and protected my head with my hands from those wings. And a chair, not like ours, but an ancient chair, came in with a horse-like gait: first the right fore- and left hind-leg, then the left fore- and right hind-leg. It rushed to my bed and crawled into it, and I liked that wooden chair, although it made me uncomfortable and caused me some pain.

It is very strange; is it really impossible to find any cure for this dream-sickness, or to make it rational, perhaps even useful?

RECORD TWENTY-TWO

The Benumbed Waves Everything Is Improving I Am a Microbe

Please imagine that you stand at the seashore. The waves go rhythmically up, down, up.... Suddenly when they have risen they remain in that position, benumbed, torpid! It was just as weird and unnatural when everything became confused and our regular walk which is prescribed by the Tables, suddenly came to an end. The last time such a thing happened was 119 years ago, when according to our historians a meteorite fell hissing and fuming into the very midst of the marchers. We were walking yesterday as usual, that is like warriors on the Assyrian monuments, a thousand heads and two composite, integrated legs and two swinging integrated arms. At the end of the avenue where the Accumulating Tower was formidably resounding, a quadrangle appeared: on the sides, in front and behind--guards; in the centre three Numbers. Their unifs were already stripped of the golden State badges; everything was painfully clear. The enormous dial on the top of the Tower looked like a face; it bent down from the clouds and spitting down its seconds, it waited with indifference. It showed six minutes past thirteen exactly. There was some confusion in the quadrangle. I was very close and I saw the most minute details. I clearly remember a thin, long neck and on the temple a confused net of small blue veins like rivers on the map of a small unfamiliar world, and that unknown world was apparently still a very young man. He evidently noticed someone in our ranks; he stopped, rose upon his tip-toes and stretched his neck. One of the guards snapped his back with the bluish spark of the electric whip--he squealed in a thin voice like a puppy. The distinct snaps followed each other at intervals of approximately two seconds; a snap and a squeal, a snap and a squeal.... We continued to walk as usual, rhythmically, in our Assyrian manner. I watched the graceful zigzags of the electric sparks and thought: "Human society is constantly improving, as it should. How ugly a tool was the ancient whip and how much beauty there is--"

At that moment, like a nut flying from a wheel revolving at full speed, a female Number, thin, flexible and tense, tore herself from our rows, and with a cry, "Enough! Don't you dare!" she threw herself straight into the quadrangle. It was like the meteorite of 119 years ago; our march came to a standstill and our rows appeared like the gray crests of waves frozen by sudden cold. For a second I looked at that woman's figure with the eye of a stranger as all the others did. She was no Number any longer; she was only a human being and she existed for us only as a substantiation of the insult which she cast upon the United State. But a motion of hers, her bending while twisting to the left upon her hips, revealed to me clearly who she was. I knew, I knew that body, flexible as a whip! My eyes, my lips, my hands knew it; at that moment I was absolutely certain.... Two of the guards dashed to catch her. One more moment and that limpid mirror-like point on the pavement would have become the point of meeting of their trajectories, and she would have been caught! My heart fell, stopped. Without thinking whether it was permissible or not, whether it was reasonable or absurd, I threw myself straight to that point.

I felt thousands of eyes bulging with horror fixed upon me but that only added a sort of desperately joyful power to that wild being with hairy paws which arose in me and ran faster and faster. Two more steps--she turned around--

I saw a quivering face covered with freckles, red eyebrows.... It was not she! Not I-330!

A rabid, quivering joy took hold of me. I wanted to shout something like: "Catch her! Get her, that--" But I heard only my whisper. A heavy hand was already upon my shoulder; I was caught and led away. I tried to explain to them:

"But listen, you must understand that I thought that...."

But could I explain even to myself all the sickness which I have described in these pages? My light went out; I waited obediently. As a leaf that is torn from its branch by a sudden gust of wind falls humbly, but on its way down turns and tries to catch every little branch, every fork, every knot; so I tried to catch every one of the silent, globe-like heads, or the transparent ice of the walls, or the blue needle of the Accumulating Tower which seemed to pierce the clouds.

At that moment, when a heavy curtain was about to separate from me this beautiful world, I noticed not far away a familiar, enormous head gliding over the mirror surface of the pavement and wagging its wing-like ears. I heard a familiar, flat voice:

"I deem it my duty to testify that Number D-503 is ill and is unable to regulate his emotions. Moreover, I am sure that he was led by natural indignation--"

"Yes! Yes!" I exclaimed, "I even shouted 'catch her!'"

From behind me: "You did not shout anything."

"No, but I wanted to. I swear by the Well-Doer, I wanted to!"

For a second I was bored through by the gray, cold, drill-eyes. I don't know whether he believed that what I said was the truth (almost!), or whether he had some secret reason for sparing me for a while, but he wrote a short note, handed it to one of those who had held me and again I was free. That is, I was again included in the orderly, endless, Assyrian rows of Numbers.

The quadrangle, the freckled face and the temple with the map of blue veinlets disappeared forever around the corner. We walked again--a million-headed body; and in each one of us resided that humble joyfulness with which in all probability molecules, atoms and phagocytes live.

In the ancient days the Christians understood this feeling; they are our only (though very imperfect) direct forerunners. The greatness of the "Church of the United Flock" was known to them. They knew that resignation is virtue, and pride--a vice; that "We" is from God, "I" from the devil.

I was walking, keeping step with the others yet separated from them. I was still trembling from the emotion just felt, like a bridge over which a thundering ancient steel train has passed a moment before. I _felt_ myself. To feel one's self, to be conscious of one's personality, is the lot of an eye inflamed by a cinder, or an infected finger, or a bad tooth. A healthy eye, or finger, or tooth is not felt; it is non-existent as it were. Is it not clear then, that consciousness of oneself is a sickness?

Apparently I am no longer a phagocyte which quietly, in a business-like way devours microbes (microbes with freckled faces and blue temples); apparently I am myself a microbe, and she too, I-330, is a microbe, a wonderful, diabolic microbe! It is quite possible that there are already thousands of such microbes among us, still pretending to be phagocytes, as I pretend. What if today's accident, although in itself not important, is only a beginning, only the first meteorite of a shower of burning and thundering stones which the infinite may have poured out upon our glass paradise?

RECORD TWENTY-THREE

Flowers The Dissolution of a Crystal If only (?)

They say there are flowers that bloom only once in a hundred years. Why not suppose the existence of flowers that bloom only once a thousand years? We may have known nothing about them until now only because today is the "once in a thousand years"?

Happy and dizzy I walked downstairs to the controller on duty and quickly under my gaze all around me and silently the thousand-year-old buds burst, and everything was blooming: armchairs, shoes, golden badges, electric bulbs, someone's dark heavy eyes, the polished columns of the banisters, the handkerchief which someone lost on the stairs, the small, ink-blotted desk of the controller and the tender brown, somewhat freckled cheeks of U-. Everything seemed not ordinary, new, tender, rosy, moist. U- took the pink stub from me while the blue, aromatic moon, hanging from an unseen branch, shone through the glass of the wall and over the head of U-. With a solemn gesture I pointed my finger and said:

"The moon. You see?"

U- glanced at me, then at the number of the stub and again made that familiar, charmingly innocent movement with which she fixes the fold of the unif between her knees.

"You look abnormal and ill, dear. Abnormality and illness are the same thing. You are killing yourself. And no one would tell you that, no one!"

That "No one" was certainly equivalent to the number on the stub,--I-330. This thought was confirmed by an ink-blot which fell close to the figure 330. Dear, wonderful U-! You are right, of course. I am not reasonable. I am sick. I have a soul. I am a microbe. But is blooming--not a sickness? Is it not painful when the buds are bursting? And don't you think that spermatozoa are the most terrible of all microbes?

Back upstairs to my room. In the widely open cup of the armchair was I-330. I, on the floor, embracing her limbs, my head on her lap. We were silent. Everything was silent. Only the pulse was audible. Like a crystal I was _dissolving_ in her, in I-330. I felt most distinctly how the polished facets which limited me in space were slowly thawing, melting away. I was dissolving in her lap, in her, and I became at once smaller and larger and larger, unembraceable. For she was not she but the whole universe. For a second I and that armchair near the bed, transfixed with joy, we were one. And the wonderfully smiling old woman at the gate of the Ancient House, and the wild debris beyond the Green Wall, and some strange silver wreckage on a black background, dozing like the old woman and the slam of a door in the distance,--all this was within me, was listening to my pulse and soaring through the happiest of seconds.

In absurd, confused, overflowing words I attempted to tell her that I was a crystal and that there was a door in me, and that I felt how happy the armchair was. But something nonsensical came out of the attempt and I stopped. I was ashamed. And suddenly:

"Dear I-! Forgive me! I understand nothing. I talk so foolishly!"

"And why should you think that foolishness is not fine? If we had taken pains to educate human foolishness through centuries, as we have done with our intelligence, it might perhaps have been transformed into something very precious."

Yes, I think she is right! How could she be wrong at that moment?

"... And for this foolishness of yours and for what you did yesterday during the walk, I love you the more, much more."

"Then why did you torture me? Why would you not come? Why did you send me the pink check and make me--?"

"Perhaps I wanted to test you. Perhaps I must be sure that you will do anything I wish, that you are completely mine."

"Yes, completely."

She took my face, my whole self, between her palms, lifted my head:

"And how about 'It is the duty of every honest Number'? Eh?"

Sweet, sharp, white teeth,--a smile. In the open cup of the armchair she was like a bee,--sting and honey combined.

Yes, duty.... I turned over in my mind the pages of my records; indeed there is not a thought about the fact that strictly speaking I should....

I was silent. Exaltedly (and probably stupidly) I smiled, looking into the pupils of her eyes. I followed first one eye and then the other and in each of them I saw myself, a millimetric self imprisoned in those tiny rainbow cells. Then again the lips and the sweet pain of blooming.

In each Number of the United State there is an unseen metronome which tick-tocks silently; without looking at the clock we know exactly the time of day within five minutes. But now my metronome had stopped and I did not know how much time had passed. In fright I grasped my badge with its clock from under the pillow. Glory be to the Well-Doer! I had twenty minutes more! But those minutes were such tiny, short ones! They ran! And I wanted to tell her so many things. I wanted to tell her all about myself; about the letter from O- and about that terrible evening when I gave her a child; and for some reason also about my childhood, about our mathematician Plappa and about the square-root of minus one; and how, when I attended the glorification on the Day of Unanimity for the first time in my life, I wept bitterly because there was an ink-stain on my unif--on such a holy day!

I-330 lifted her head. She leaned on her elbow. In the corners of her lips two long, sharp lines and the dark angle of lifted eyebrows--a cross.

"Perhaps on that day ..." her brow grew darker; she took my hand and pressed it hard. "Tell me, will you ever forget me? Will you always remember me?"

"But why such talk? What is it, I-, dear?"

She was silent. And her eyes were already sliding past me, through me, away into the distance. I suddenly heard the wind beating the glass with its enormous wings. Of course it had been blowing all the while but I had not noticed it until then. And for some reason those cawing birds over the Green Wall came to my mind.

I-330 shook her head with a gesture of throwing something off. Once more she touched me for a second with her whole body, as an aero before landing touches the ground for a second with all the tension of a recoiling spring.

"Well, give me my stockings, quick!"

The stockings were on the desk, on the open manuscript, on page 124. Being in haste I caught some of the pages and they were scattered over the floor so that it was hard to put them back in the proper order. Moreover, even if I put them in that order there will be no real order; there are obstacles to that anyway, some undiscoverable unknowns.

"I can't bear it," I said, "You are here, near me, yet you seem to be behind an opaque ancient wall; through that wall I hear a rustle and voices; I cannot make out the words, I don't know what is there. I cannot bear it. You seem always to withhold something from me; you have never told me what kind of a place it was where I found myself that day beneath the Ancient House. Where did those corridors lead? Why was the doctor there,--or perhaps all that never happened?"

I-330 put her hands on my shoulders and slowly entered deeply into my eyes.

"You want to know all?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you would not be afraid to follow me anywhere? Wherever I should lead you?"

"Anywhere!"

"All right then. I promise you, after the holiday, if only.... Oh yes, there is your _Integral_. I always forget to ask; will it soon be completed?"

"No. 'If only' what? Again! 'If only' what?"

She, already at the door: "You shall see."

I was again alone. All that she left behind her was a barely perceptible scent, similar to that of a sweet, dry, yellow dust of flowers from behind the Green Wall; also, sunk deeply within me, question marks like small hooks similar to those the ancients used for fishing (_vide_ the Prehistoric Museum).

... Why did she suddenly ask about the _Integral_?

RECORD TWENTY-FOUR

The Limit of the Function Easter To Cross Out Everything

I am like a motor set in motion at a speed of too many revolutions per second, the bearings have become too hot and in one more minute the molten metal will begin to drip and everything will go to the devil. Cold water! Quick! Some logic! I pour pailfuls of it, but my logic merely sizzles on the hot metal and disappears in the air in the form of vapor.

Of course it is clear that in order to establish the true meaning of a function, one must establish its limit. It is also clear that yesterday's "dissolution in the universe" taken to its limit is death. For death is exactly the most complete dissolution of the self in the universe. Hence: L=f(D), love is the function of death.

Yes, exactly, exactly! That is why I am afraid of I-330; I struggle against her, I don't want.... But why is it that within me "I don't want to" and "I want to" stand side by side? That is the chief horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of yesterday. The horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated the logical function, when it becomes evident that the latter contains death hidden in it, nevertheless I long for it with my lips, arms, breast, with every millimeter....

Tomorrow is the Day of Unanimity. She will certainly be there and I shall see her, though from a distance. That distance will be painful to me, for I must be, I am inevitably drawn, close to her, so that her hands, her shoulder, her hair.... I long for even that pain.... Let it come.... Great Well-Doer! How absurd to desire pain! Who is ignorant of the simple fact that pains are negative items which reduce that sum total we call happiness? Consequently ... Well, no "consequently" ... Emptiness.... Nakedness!

_The Same Evening._

Through the glass wall of the house I see a disquieting, windy, feverishly pink, sunset. I move my armchair to avoid that pinkness and turn over these pages, and I find I am forgetting that I write this not for myself but for you unknown people whom I love and pity, for you who still lag centuries behind, below. Let me tell you about the Day of Unanimity, about that Great Day. I think that day for us is what Easter was for the ancients. I remember I used to prepare an hour-calendar the eve of that day; solemnly I would cross out every time the figure of the hour elapsed; nearer by one hour! one hour less to wait!... If I were certain that nobody would discover it, I assure you I should now too, make out such a calendar and carry it with me, and I should watch how many hours remain until tomorrow, when I shall see, at least from a distance....

(I was interrupted. They brought me a new unif from the shop. As is customary, new unifs are given to us for tomorrow's celebration. Steps in the hall, exclamations of joy, noises.)

I shall continue; tomorrow I shall see the same spectacle which we see year after year and which always awakes in us fresh emotions, as though we saw it for the first time: an impressive throng of piously lifted arms. Tomorrow is the day of the yearly election of the Well-Doer. Tomorrow we shall again hand over to our Well-Doer the keys to the impregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly this in no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election-days of the ancients, on which (it seems so funny!) they did not even know in advance the result of the election. To build a state on some non-discountable contingencies, to build blindly,--what could be more nonsensical? Yet centuries were required to pass before this was understood!

Needless to say, we in this respect as in all others have no place for contingencies; nothing unexpected can happen. The elections themselves have rather a symbolic meaning. They remind us that we are a united, powerful organism of millions of cells, that--, to use the language of the "gospel" of the ancients, we are a united church. The history of the United State knows not a single case in which upon this solemn day even a solitary voice has dared to violate the magnificent unison.

They say that the ancients used to conduct their elections secretly, stealthily like thieves. Some of our historians assert even that they would come to the electoral celebrations completely masked. Imagine the weird, fantastic spectacle! Night. A plaza. Along the walls the stealthily creeping figures covered with mantles. The red flame of torches dancing in the wind.... Why was such secrecy necessary? It has never been satisfactorily explained. Probably it resulted from the fact that elections were associated with some mystic and superstitious, perhaps even criminal ceremonies. We have nothing to conceal or to be ashamed of; we celebrate our election openly, honestly, in daylight. I see them all vote for the Well-Doer and everybody sees me vote for the Well-Doer. How could it be otherwise, since "all" and "I" are one "we"? How ennobling, sincere, lofty, is this compared with the cowardly, thievish "secrecy" of the ancients! Moreover, how much more expedient! For even admitting for a moment the impossible, that is the outbreak of some dissonance in our customary unity, in that case our unseen Guardians are always right there among us, are they not, to register the Numbers who would fall into error and save them from any further false steps? The United State is theirs, the Numbers'! And besides....

Through the wall to my left a she-number before the mirror-door of the closet; she is hastily unbuttoning her unif. For a second, swiftly--eyes, lips, two sharp, pink ... the curtains fell. Within me instantly awoke all that happened yesterday and now I no longer know what I meant to say by "besides...." I no longer wish to;--I cannot. I want one thing. I want I-330. I want her every minute, every second, to be with me, with no one else. All that I wrote about Unanimity is of no value; it is not what I want; I have a desire to cross it out, to tear it to pieces and throw it away. For I know (be it a sacrilege, yet it is the truth), that a glorious Day is possible only with her and only then when we are side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Without her the Sun of tomorrow will appear to me only as a little circle cut out of a tin sheet, and the sky a sheet of tin painted blue, and I myself ... I snatched the telephone receiver.

"I-330, are you there?"

"Yes, it is I. Why so late?"

"Perhaps not too late yet. I want to ask you ... I want you to be with me tomorrow--dear!"

"Dear" I said in a very low voice. And for some reason a thing I saw this morning at the docks flashed through my mind: just for fun someone put a watch under the hundred-ton sledge-hammer.... A swing, a breath of wind in the face and the silent hundred-ton, knife-like weight on the breakable watch....