We
Her light went out, her roundness sagged and shrank. And in my
heart an unpleasant, even a painful compression, mixed with pity.
Our heart is nothing else than an ideal pump: a compression, i.e.,
a shrinking at the moment of pumping, is a technical absurdity.
Hence it is clear how essentially absurd, unnatural and pathological
are all these "loves" and "pities," etc., etc., which create that
compression....
Silence. To the left the cloudy green glass of the Wall. And just
ahead the dark red mass. Those two colors combined, gave me as a
resultant what I thought was a splendid idea.
"Wait! I know how to save you! I shall save you from.... To see
one's own child for a few moments only and then be sent to death!
No! You shall be able to bring it up! You shall watch it and see it
grow in your arms, and ripen like a fruit...."
Her body quivered and she seemed to have chained herself to me.
"Do you remember that woman, I-330? That ... of ... of long ago?...
Who during that walk?... Well, she is now right here, in the
Ancient House. Let us go to her and I assure you that I shall
arrange matters at once."
I already pictured us, I-330 and I, leading O-90 through the
corridors ... then how she would be brought amidst flowers, grass,
and leaves.... But O-90 stepped back, the little horns of her rosy
crescent trembling and bending downward.
"Is she _that same one_?" she asked.
"That is...." I was confused for some reason. "Yes, of course ...
that very same...."
"And you want me to go to _her_, to ask her ... to.... Don't you
ever dare to say another word about it!"
Leaning over, she walked away.... Then as if she remembered
something, she turned around and cried:
"I shall die; be it so! And it is none of your business ... what do
you care?"
Silence. From above pieces of blue towers and walls were falling
downward with terrific speed ... they will have perhaps hours or
days to fly through the infinite.... Unseen threads were slowly
floating through the air, planting themselves upon my face, and it
was impossible to brush them off, impossible to rid myself of them.
I walked slowly toward the Ancient House and in my heart I felt that
absurd, tormenting compression....
RECORD THIRTY
The Last Number
Galileo's Mistake
Would It Not Be Better?
Here is my conversation with I-330, which took place in the Ancient
House yesterday in the midst of loud noise, among colors which
stifled the logical course of my thoughts, red, green, bronze,
saffron-yellow, orange colors.... And all the while under the
motionless marble smile of that snub-nosed ancient poet.
I shall reproduce the conversation word by word, for it seems to
me that it may have an enormous and decisive importance for the
fate of the United State,--more than that, for the fate of the
universe. Besides, reading it, you my unknown readers, may find some
justification for me. I-330, without preliminaries, at once threw
everything upon my head:
"I know that the day after tomorrow the first trial trip of the
_Integral_ is to take place. On that day we shall take possession of
it."
"What! Day after tomorrow?"
"Yes. Sit down and don't be upset. We cannot afford to lose a
minute. Among the hundreds who were arrested yesterday there are
twenty Mephis. To let pass two or three days means that they will
perish."
I was silent.
"As observers on the trial trip they will send electricians,
mechanicians, physicians, meteorologists, etc.... At twelve sharp,
you must remember this, when the bell rings for dinner we shall
remain in the passage, lock them all up in the dining hall, and the
_Integral_ will be ours. You realize that it is most necessary,
happen what may! The _Integral_ in our hands will be a tool that
will help to put an end to everything at once without pain.... Their
aeros?... Bah! They would be insignificant mosquitos against a
buzzard. And then, if it proves inevitable, we may direct the tubes
of the motors downward and by their work alone...."
I jumped up.
"It is inconceivable! It is absurd! Is it not clear to you that what
you are contriving is a revolution?"
"Yes, a revolution. Why is it absurd?"
"Absurd? because a revolution is impossible! Because _our_ (I speak
for myself and for you), our revolution was the last one. No other
revolutions may occur. Everybody knows that."
A mocking, sharp triangle of brows.
"My dear, you are a mathematician, are you not? More than that, a
philosopher-mathematician? Well then, name the last number!"
"What is ... I ... I cannot understand, which _last_?"
"The last one, the highest, the largest."
"But I-330, it is absurd! Since the number of numbers is infinite,
how can there be a last one?"
"And why then do you think there is a _last_ revolution? There is
no last revolution, their number is infinite.... The 'last one' is
a children's story. Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is
necessary that children should not be frightened, so that they may
sleep through the night."
"But what is the use, what is the use of it all? For the sake of the
Well-Doer! What is the use since all are happy already?"
"All right! Even suppose that is so. What further?"
"How funny! A purely childish question. You tell something to
children, come to the very end, yet they will invariably ask you,
'what further?' and 'what for?'"
"Children are the only courageous philosophers. And courageous
philosophers are invariably children. One ought always to ask like
children, 'what further'?"
"Nothing further! Period. In the whole world evenly, everywhere,
there is distributed...."
"Ah, 'evenly!' 'Everywhere!' That is the point, entropy!
Psychological entropy. Don't you as a mathematician know that only
differences (only differences!), in temperature, only thermic
contrasts make for life? And if all over the world there are evenly
warm or evenly cold bodies, they must be pushed off! ... in order
to get flame, explosions! And we shall push!..."
"But I-330, please realize that our ancestors during the Two Hundred
Years' War did exactly that!"
"Oh, they were right! A thousand times right! They did one wrong
thing, however; later they began to believe that they were the _last
number_, a number that does not exist in nature. Their mistake was
the mistake of Galileo; he was right in that the earth revolves
about the sun but he did not know that our whole solar system
revolves about some other centre, he did not know that the real (not
relative) orbit of the earth is not a naive circle."
"And you, the Mephi?"
"We? For the time being we know that there is no _last_ number. We
may forget that some day. Of course, we shall certainly forget it
when we grow old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall
inevitably fall like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the
day-after-tomorrow.... No, no dear, not you personally. You are with
us, are you not? You are with us?"
Flaming, stormy, sparkling! I never before had seen her in such a
state. She embraced me with her whole self; I disappeared.
Her last word, looking steadily, deeply into my eyes:
"Then, do not forget: at twelve o'clock sharp."
And I answered:
"Yes, I remember."
She left. I was alone amidst a rebellious, multi-voiced commotion of
blue, red, green, saffron-yellow and orange....
Yes, at twelve!... Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on
my face, of something implanted, that could not be brushed off.
Suddenly, yesterday morning, and U- and all she shouted into the
face of I-330! Why, how absurd!
I hastened to get out of the house and home, home! Somewhere behind
me I heard the chattering of birds beyond the Wall. And ahead of me
in the setting sun the balls of cupolas made of red, crystallized
fire, enormous flaming cubes--houses, and the sharp point of the
Accumulating Tower high in the sky like a paralyzed streak of
lightning. And all this, all this impeccable, most geometric beauty,
shall I, I myself, with my hands...? Is there no way out? No path?
No trail?
I passed by an auditorium (I do not recall its number). Inside, the
benches were stacked along the walls. In the middle, tables covered
with snow-white glass sheets, with pink stains of sunny blood on
the white.... There was foreshadowed in all that some unknown and
therefore alarming tomorrow. It is unnatural for a thinking and
seeing human being to live among irregularities, unknowns, X's. If
suddenly your eyes were covered with a bandage and you were let go
to feel around, to stumble, ever aware that somewhere very close
to you there is the border-line, one step only and nothing but a
compressed, smothered piece of flesh will be left of you.... I now
feel somewhat like that.
... And what if without waiting for anything I should ... just head
down.... Would it not be the only right thing to do? To disentangle
everything at once?
RECORD THIRTY-ONE
The Great Operation
I Forgave Everything
The Collision of Trains
Saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was
nothing to hold to, that it was the end!...
It was as if you already ascended the steps towards the threatening
machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy
thud already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked
at the blue sky to swallow it with your eyes ... when suddenly, it
was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall ... what
happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To
delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in
the white pillow!... This is approximately what I felt, when I read
the State Journal this morning. It has been all a terrible dream
and this dream is over. And I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that I
thought of selfish, voluntary death! I am ashamed now to reread the
last lines of yesterday. But let them remain as a memory of that
incredible might-have-happened, which will not happen! On the front
page of the State Journal the following gleamed:
"REJOICE!
"For from now on we are _perfect!_
"Before today your own creation, engines, were more perfect than
you.
"WHY?
"For every spark from a dynamo--is a spark of pure reason; each
motion of a piston--a pure syllogism. Is it not true that the same
faultless reason is within you?
"The philosophy of the cranes, presses, and pumps is finished
and clear like a circle. But is your philosophy less circular?
The beauty of a mechanism lies in its immutable, precise rhythm,
like that of a pendulum. But have you not become as precise as a
pendulum, you who are brought up on the system of Taylor?
"Yes, but there is one difference:
"MECHANISMS HAVE NO FANCY
"Did you ever notice a pump cylinder during its work show upon its
face a wide, distant, sensuously-dreaming smile? Did you ever hear
cranes restlessly toss about and sigh at night, during the hours
designed for rest?
"NO!
"Yet on your faces (you may well blush with shame!), the Guardians
have seen more and more frequently those smiles and they have
heard your sighs. And (you should hide your eyes for shame!) the
historians of the United State all tendered their resignations so as
to be relieved from having to record such shameful occurrences.
"It is not your fault; you are ill. And the name of your illness is
"FANCY
"It is a worm that gnaws black wrinkles on one's forehead. It is a
fever that drives one to run farther and farther, albeit 'farther'
may begin where happiness ends. It is the last barricade on our road
to happiness.
"_Rejoice! This Barricade Has Been Blasted at Last! The Road is
Open!_
"The latest discovery of our State science is that there is a centre
for fancy,--a miserable little nervous knot in the lower region of