We
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....
A silence. I thought I heard someone's whisper in I-330's room. Then
her voice:
"No, I cannot. Of course you understand that I myself.... No, I
cannot. 'Why?' You shall see tomorrow."
Night.
RECORD TWENTY-FIVE
The Descent from Heaven
The Greatest Catastrophe in History
The Known--Is Ended
At the beginning all arose, and the hymn, like a solemn mantle,
slowly waved above our heads. Hundreds of tubes of the Musical Tower
and millions of human voices. For a second I forgot everything; I
forgot that alarming something at which I-330 hinted in connection
with today's celebration; I think I even forgot about her. At that
moment I was the very same little boy who once wept because of a
tiny ink-stain on his unif, which no one else could see. Even if it