Part 5

I turned around. She was dressed in a saffron-yellow dress of an ancient style. This was a thousand times worse than if she had not been dressed at all. Two sharp points, through the thin tissue glowing with rosiness, two burning embers piercing through ashes; two tender, round knees....

She was sitting in a low armchair. In front of her on a small square table, I noticed a bottle filled with something poisonously green and two small glasses on thin legs. In the corner of her mouth she had a very thin paper tube; she was ejecting smoke formed by the burning of that ancient smoking substance whose name I do not now remember.

The membrane was still vibrating. Within the sledge-hammer was pounding the red-hot iron bars of my chest. I heard distinctly every blow of the hammer, and ... what if she too heard it?

But she continued to produce smoke very calmly; calmly she looked at me; and nonchalantly she flicked ashes on the pink check!

With as much self-control as possible I asked, "If you still feel that way, why did you have me assigned to you? And why did you make me come here?"

As if she had not heard at all, she poured some of the green liquid from the bottle into a small glass and sipped it.

"Wonderful liqueur! Want some?"

Then I understood; alcohol! Like lightning there came to memory what I saw yesterday: the stony hand of the Well-Doer, the unbearable blade of the electric ray; there on the Cube, the head thrown backward, the stretched-out body! I shivered.

"Please listen," I said, "You know, do you not, that any one who poisons himself with nicotine, more particularly with alcohol, is severely treated by the United State?"

Dark brows raised high to the temples, the sharp mocking triangle.

"'It is more reasonable to annihilate a few than to allow many to poison themselves.... And degeneration,' ... etc.... This is true to the point of indecency."

"Indecency?"

"Yes. To let out into the street such a group of bald-headed naked little truths. Only imagine please. Imagine, say, that persistent admirer of mine, S-, well, you know him. Then imagine: if he should discard the deception of clothes and appear in public in his true form ... oh!" She laughed. But I clearly saw her lower, sorrowful triangle; two deep grooves from the nose to the mouth. And for some reason these grooves made me think: that double-curved being, half-hunched, with wing-like ears,--he embraced her? her, such ... Oh!

Naturally, I try now merely to express my abnormal feelings of that moment. Now, as I write, I understand perfectly that all this is as it should be; that he, S-4711, like any other honest Number has a perfect right to the joys of life and that it would be unjust.... But I think the point is quite clear.

I-330 laughed a long, strange laugh. Then she cast a look at me, into me.

"The most curious thing is that I am not in the least afraid of you. You are such a dear, I am sure of it! You would never think of going to the Bureau and reporting that I drink liqueurs and smoke. You will be sick or busy, or I don't know what.... Furthermore, I am sure you will drink this charming poison with me."

What an impertinent, mocking tone! I felt definitely that in a moment I should hate her. (Why in a moment? In fact I hated her all the time.)

I-330 turned over the little glass of green poison straight into her mouth. Then she stood up, and all rosy through the translucent saffron-yellow tissue, she made a few steps and stopped behind my chair.... Suddenly her arms were about my neck ... her lips grew into mine, no, even somewhere much deeper, much more terribly.... I swear all this was very unexpected for me. That is why perhaps ... for I could not (at this moment I see clearly) I could not myself have the desire to....

Unbearably sweet lips. (I suppose it was the taste of the liqueur.) It was as though burning poison were being poured into me, and more and more....

I tore away from the earth and began revolving as an independent planet,--down--down--following an uncalculable curve....

What happened next I am able to describe only in an approximate way, only by way of more or less corresponding analogies.

It never occurred to me before but it is true: we who live on the earth, we are always walking over a seething red sea of fire which is hidden in the womb of the earth. We never think of it. But imagine the ground under our feet suddenly transformed into a thin glass shell; suddenly we should behold...!

I became glass-like and saw within myself. There were two selves in me. One, the former D-503, Number D-503; and the other.... Before, that other used only to show his hairy paws from time to time, but now the whole other self left his shell. That shell was breaking, and in a moment....

Grasping with all my strength the last straw (the arms of the chair), I asked loudly (so as to hear my first self), "Where, where did you get this poison?"

"Oh, this? A physician, one of my...."

"'One of my! one of my' what?" And my other self jumped up suddenly and yelled: "I won't allow it! I want no one but me.... I shall kill any one who.... Because I.... You." ... I saw my other self grasp her rudely with his hairy paws, tear the silk, and put his teeth in her flesh!... I remember exactly, his teeth!...

I do not remember how, but I-330 slipped away and I saw her straightened, her head raised high, her eyes overlain by that cursed impenetrable curtain. She stood leaning with her back against the closet door and listening to me.

I remember I was on the floor; I embraced her limbs, kissed her knees and cried supplicatingly, "At once, right away, right away."

Sharp teeth.... The sharp mocking triangle of the brows.... She bent over and in silence unbuttoned my badge.

"Yes, yes, dear--dear."

I began hastily to remove my unif. But I-330, silent as before, lifted my badge to my eyes, showing me the clock upon it. It was twenty-two-twenty-five.

I became cold. I knew what it meant to be out in the street after twenty-two-thirty. My insanity disappeared at once. I was again I. I saw clearly one thing: I hated her, hated her, hated-- ... Without saying good-bye, without looking back, I ran out of the room. Hurriedly trying to fasten the badge back in its place, I ran down the stairs (I was afraid lest some one notice me in the elevator), and jumped out into a deserted street.

Everything was in its place; life so simple, ordinary, orderly. Glittering glass houses, pale glass sky, a greenish, motionless night. But under that cool glass something wild, something red and hairy, was silently seething. I was gasping for breath but I continued to run, so as not to be late.

Suddenly I felt that my badge which I had hurriedly pinned on, was detaching itself; it came off and fell to the sidewalk. I bent over to pick it up and in the momentary silence I heard somebody's steps. I turned. Someone small and hunched was disappearing around the corner. At least so it seemed. I started to run as fast as I could. The wind whistled in my ears. At the entrance of my house I stopped and looked at the clock; one minute to twenty-two-thirty! I listened; nobody behind. It was my foolish imagination, the effect of the poison.

The night was full of torture. My bed seemed to lift itself under me, then to fall again, then up again! I used autosuggestion: "At night all the Numbers must sleep; sleeping at night is a duty just like working during the day. To sleep at night is necessary for the next day's work. Not to sleep at night is criminal." Yet I could not sleep--I could not. I was perishing! I was unable to fulfill my duties to the United State! I....

RECORD ELEVEN

No, I Can't; Let It Be without Headings!

Evening. It is somewhat foggy. The sky is covered with a milky-golden tissue, and one cannot see what is there, beyond, on the heights. The ancients "knew" that the greatest, bored skeptic--their God, lived there. We know that crystalline, blue, naked, indecent Nothing is there. _I_ do not know any more what _is_ there. I have learned too many things of late. Knowledge, self-confident knowledge which is sure that it is faultless, is faith. I had firm faith in myself; I believed that I knew all about myself. But then.... I look in the mirror. And for the first time in my life, yes, _for the first time in my life_, I see clearly, precisely, consciously and with surprise, I see myself as some "him!" I am "he." Frowning, black, straight brows; between them like a scar, there is a vertical wrinkle. (Was there that wrinkle before?) Steel gray eyes encircled by the shadow of a sleepless night. And behind that steel ... I understand; I never before knew what there was behind that steel. From there (this "there" is at once so near and so infinitely distant!) I look at myself--at "him." And I know surely that "he" with his straight brows is a stranger, that I meet him here for the first time in my life. The real I is _not_ he.

No. Period. All this is nonsense. And all these foolish emotions are only delirium, the result of last night's poisoning.... Poisoning with what? With a sip of that green poison or with her? It matters little. I write all this merely in order to demonstrate how strangely the precise and sharp human reason may become confused. This reason, strong enough to make infinity which the ancients feared so much, understandable by means of.... The switch buzzes, "Number R-13." Well, I am even glad; alone I should....

_Twenty minutes later_:

On the plane of this paper, in a world of two dimensions, these lines follow each other, but in another world they.... I am losing the sense for figures.... Twenty minutes! Perhaps two hundred or two hundred thousand!...

It seems so strange, quietly, deliberately, measuring every word, to write down my adventure with R-. Imagine yourself sitting down at your own bed, crossing your legs, watching curiously how you yourself shrivel in the very same bed. My mental state is similar to that.

When R-13 came in I was perfectly quiet and normal. I began with sincere admiration to tell him how wonderfully he succeeded in versifying the death sentence of that insane man, and that his poem more than anything else had smothered and annihilated the transgressor of the law.

"More than that," I said, "if I were ordered to prepare a mathematical draught of the Machine of the Well-Doer, I should undoubtedly,--undoubtedly, put on that draught some of your verses!"--Suddenly I saw R-'s eyes becoming more and more opaque, his lips acquiring a gray tint.

"What is the matter?"

"What?--Well.... Merely that I am dead sick of it; everybody keeps on: 'the death-sentence, the death-sentence!' I want to hear no more of it! You understand? I do not want...." He became serious, rubbing his neck--that little valise filled with luggage which I cannot understand. A silence. There! He found something in that little valise of his, removed it, unwrapped it, spread it out; his eyes became covered with the varnish of laughter. He began:

"I am writing something for your _Integral_. Yes.... I am!" He was himself again; bubbling, sprinkling lips; words splashing like a fountain.

"You see, it is the ancient legend of paradise." ("p" like a fountain.) "That legend referred to us of today, did it not? Yes. Only think of it, think of it a moment! There were two in paradise and the choice was offered to them: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. No other choice. _Tertium non datur_. They, fools that they were, chose freedom. Naturally, they longed for centuries afterwards for fetters, for the fetters of yore. This was the meaning of their world-weariness, _Weltschmerz_. For centuries! And only we found a way to regain happiness.... No, listen, follow me! The ancient god and we, side by side at the same table! Yes, we helped god definitely and finally to defeat the devil. It was he, the devil, who lead people to transgression, to taste pernicious freedom, he the cunning serpent? And we came along, planted a boot on his head and ... squash! Done with him! Paradise again! We returned to the simple-mindedness and innocence of Adam and Eve. No more meddling with good and evil and all that; everything is simple again, heavenly, childishly simple! The Well-Doer, The Machine, The Cube, the giant Gas Bell, The Guardians,--all these are good. All this is magnificent, beautiful, noble, lofty, crystalline, pure. For all this preserves our non-freedom, that is, our happiness. In our place those ancients would indulge in discussions, deliberations, etc. They would break their heads trying to make out what was moral or unmoral. But we.... Well, in short, these are the highlights of my little paradise poem. What do you think of it? And above all the style is most solemn, pious. Understand me? Nice little idea, is it not? Do you understand?"

Of course I understood. I remember my thoughts at that moment: "his appearance is nonsensical and lacking in symmetry, yet what an orderly-working mind he has!" This made him dear to me, that is to the real _me_. (I still insist that _I_ of before is the real one; my I of late is, certainly, only an illness.)

Apparently R- read my thought in my face; he put his hand on my shoulders and laughed: "Oh you!... Adam! By the way, about Eve...." He searched for something in his pockets, took out a little book, turned over a few leaves and said, "For the day-after-tomorrow,--oh, no, two days from now,--O-90 has a pink check on you. How about it?... As before?... You want her to?"

"Of course, of course!"

"All right then, I'll tell her. You see she herself is very bashful.... What a funny story! You see, for me she has only a pink-check affection, but for you!... And you, you did not even come to tell us how a fourth member sneaked into our triangle! Who is it? Repent, sinner! Come on!"

A curtain rose inside me; rustle of silk, green bottle, lips.... Without any reason whatever I exclaimed (oh, why didn't I restrain myself at that moment?), "Tell me, R-, did you ever have the opportunity to try nicotine or alcohol?"

R- sucked in his lips, looked at me from under his brows. I distinctly heard his thoughts: "Friend though he is, yet...." And he answered:

"What shall I say? Strictly speaking, no. But I know a woman...."

"I-330?" I cried.

"What! You? You too?" R- was full of laughter; he chuckled, ready to splash over.

My mirror was hanging in such a way that in order to see R- clearly I had to turn and look across the table. From my armchair I could see now only my own forehead and eyebrows. Then I, the real I, suddenly saw in the mirror a broken, quivering line of brow; I, the real I, heard suddenly a wild disgusting cry: "What? What does that 'also' mean? What does that 'also' mean? I demand...."

Widely parted negro lips.... Eyes bulging. I (the real I) grasped my other wild, hairy, heavily breathing self forcibly. I (the real I) said to him, to R-, "In the name of the Well-Doer, please forgive me. I am very sick; I don't sleep; I do not know what is the matter with me."

A swiftly passing smile appeared on the thick lips.

"Yes, yes, I understand, I understand. I am familiar with all this, theoretically, of course. Good-bye."

At the door he turned around like a little black ball, came back to the table and put a book upon it. "This is my latest book. I came to bring it to you. Almost forgot. Good-bye." ("b" like a splash.) The little ball rolled out.

I am alone. Or, to be more exact, I am _tête-à-tête_ with that other self. I sit in the armchair and having crossed my legs, I watch curiously from some indefinite "there," how I (myself) am shrivelling in my bed!

Why, oh, why is it, that for three years R-, O-, and I were so friendly together and now suddenly--one word only about that other female, about I-330, and.... Is it possible that that insanity called love and jealousy does exist not only in the idiotic books of the ancients? What seems most strange is that I, I!... Equations, formulae, figures, and suddenly this! I can't understand it, I can't! Tomorrow I shall go to R- and tell him.... No, it isn't true; I shall not go; neither tomorrow nor day after tomorrow, nor ever.... I can't, I do not want to see him. This is the end. Our triangle is broken up.

I am alone. It is evening. There is a light fog. The sky is covered by a thin milky-golden tissue. If I only knew what is there--higher. If I only knew who I am. Which I am I?

RECORD TWELVE

The Delimitation of the Infinite Angel Meditations on Poetry

I continue to believe that I shall recover, that I may recover. I slept very well. No dreams or any other symptoms of disease. Dear O-90 will come tomorrow. Everything will again be simple, regular and limited like a circle. I am not afraid of this word "limited." The work of the highest faculty of man, judgment, is always directed toward the constant limiting of the infinite, toward the breaking up of the infinite into comfortably digestible portions,--differentials. This is what gives divine beauty to my element, mathematics. And it is exactly this beauty that that other female lacks. But this last thought of mine is only an accidental mental association.

These thoughts swarmed in my mind while I was listening to the regular, rhythmic sounds of the underground railway. Silently I followed the rhythm of its wheels and recited to myself R-'s verses (from the book which he gave me yesterday), and I felt that behind me some one was leaning over my shoulder and looking at the open pages. I did not turn around but with the corner of my eye I noticed pink ears, spread like wings, the double-curved ... like the letter.... It was he, but I did not want to disturb him. I feigned not to have noticed him. How he came in, I do not know. I did not see him when I got into the car.

This incident, insignificant in itself, had an especially good effect upon me; it invigorated me, I should say. It is pleasant to feel that somebody's penetrating eye is watching you from behind your shoulder, lovingly guarding you from making the most minute mistake, from the most minute incorrect step. It may seem to you too sentimental but I see in all this the materialization of the dream of the ancients about a Guardian-Angel. How many things about which the ancients had only dreams, are materialized in our life!

At the moment when I became aware of the presence of the Guardian-Angel behind me I was enjoying a poem entitled "Happiness." I think I am not mistaken when I say that it is a piece of rare beauty and depth of thought. Here are the first four lines:

"Two times two--eternal lovers; Inseparable in passion four ... Most flaming lovers in the world, Eternally welded, two times two."

And the rest is in the same vein: on the wisdom and the eternal happiness of the multiplication table. Every poet is inevitably a Columbus. America existed before Columbus for ages, but only Columbus found it. The multiplication table existed before R-13 for ages, but only R-13 could find in the virginal forest of figures a new Eldorado. Is it not true? Is there any happiness more wise and cloudless in this wonderful world? Steel may rust. The ancient god created the ancient man, i.e., the man capable of mistakes, _ergo_ the ancient god himself made a mistake. The multiplication table is more wise and more absolute than the ancient god, for the multiplication table never (do you understand--_never_) makes mistakes! There are no more fortunate and happy people than those who live according to the correct, eternal laws of the multiplication table. No hesitation! No errors! There is but one truth, and there is but one path to it; and that truth is: four, and that path is: two times two. Would it not seem preposterous for these happily multiplied twos suddenly to begin thinking of some foolish kind of freedom? i.e. (is it not clear?) of a mistake? It seems undeniable, axiomatic, that R-13 knows how to grasp the most fundamental, the most....

At that moment again I felt (first near the back of my head, then on my left ear) the warm, tender breath of the Guardian-Angel. He apparently noticed that the book on my lap had long been closed and that my thoughts were somewhere very far.... Well, I am ready this minute to spread before him the pages of my brain. This gives one such a feeling of tranquility and joy. I remember I even turned around and gazed long and questioningly into his eyes; but either he did not understand, or he did not want to understand me. He did not ask me anything.... The only thing left for me is to relate everything to you, my unknown readers. You are to me now as dear and as near and as far out of reach as he was at that moment.

This was my way of thinking: from the part to the whole,--R-13 is the part; the whole is our Institution of State Poets and Authors. I thought: how was it that the ancients did not notice the utter absurdity of their prose and poetry? The gigantic, magnificent power of the artistic word was spent by them in vain. It is really droll; anybody wrote whatever happened to come into his head! It was as foolish as the fact that in the days of the ancients the ocean blindly splashed at the shore for twenty-four hours without interruption or use. The millions of kilogram-meters of energy which were hidden in the waves were used only for the stimulation of sweethearts! We obtained electricity from the amorous whisper of the waves! We made a domestic animal out of that sparkling, foaming, rabid one! And in the same manner we domesticated and harnessed the wild element of poetry. Now poetry is no longer the unpardonable whistling of nightingales but a State Service! Poetry is a commodity.