ear: “The thing’s an imbecile, don’t argue with it, for heaven’s sake!”
“I won’t let you go, if I don’t want to,” said the machine. “You just tell me how much two times two is…”
Suddenly Trurl fell into a rage.
“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you all right!” he screamed. “Two and two is four and two times two is four, even if you stand on your head, pound these mountains all to dust, drink the ocean dry and swallow the sky—do you hear? Two and two is four!!”
“Trurl! What are you saying? Have you taken leave of your senses? Two and two is seven, nice machine! Seven, seven!!” howled Klapaucius, trying to drown out his friend.
“No! It’s four! Four and only four, four from the beginning to the end of time—FOUR!!” bellowed Trurl, growing hoarse.
The rock beneath their feet was seized with a feverish tremor.
The machine moved away from the cave, letting in a little pale light, and gave a piercing scream:
“That’s not true! It’s seven! Say it’s seven or I’ll hit you!”
“Never!” roared Trurl, as if he no longer cared what happened, and pebbles and dirt rained down on their heads, for the machine had begun to ram its eight-story hulk again and again into the wall of stone, hurling itself against the mountainside until huge boulders broke away and went tumbling down into the valley.
Thunder and sulfurous fumes filled the cave, and sparks flew from the blows of steel on rock, yet through all this pandemonium one could still make out, now and then, the ragged voice of Trurl bawling:
“Two and two is four! Two and two is four!!” Klapaucius attempted to shut his friend’s mouth by force, but, violently thrown off, he gave up, sat and covered his head with his arms. Not for a moment did the machine’s mad efforts flag, and it seemed that any minute now the ceiling would collapse, crush the prisoners and bury them forever. But when they had lost all hope, and the air was thick with acrid smoke and choking dust, there was suddenly a horrible scraping, and a sound like a slow explosion, louder than all the maniacal banging and battering, and the air whooshed, and the black wall that blocked the cave was whisked away, as if by a hurricane, and monstrous chunks of rock came crashing down after it. The echoes of that avalanche still rumbled and reverberated in the valley below when the two friends peered out of their cave. They saw the machine. It lay smashed and flattened, nearly broken in half by an enormous boulder that had landed in the middle of its eight floors. With the greatest care they picked their way down through the smoking rubble. In order to reach the riverbed, it was necessary to pass the remains of the machine, which resembled the wreck of some mighty vessel thrown up upon a beach. Without a word, the two stopped together in the shadow of its twisted hull. The machine still quivered slightly, and one could hear something turning, creaking feebly, within.
“Yes, this is the bad end you’ve come to, and two and two is—as it always was—” began Trurl, but just then the machine made a faint, barely audible croaking noise and said, for the last time, “SEVEN.”
Then something snapped inside, a few stones dribbled down from overhead, and now before them lay nothing but a lifeless mass of scrap. The two constructors exchanged a look and silently, without any further comment or conversation, walked back the way they came.
A GOOD SHELLACKING
Someone was knocking at the door of Klapaucius the constructor. He looked out and saw a potbellied machine on four short legs.
“Who are you and what do you want?” he asked.
“I’m a Machine to Grant Your Every Wish and have been sent here by your good friend and colleague, Trurl the Magnificent, as a gift.”
“A gift, eh?” replied Klapaucius, whose feelings for Trurl were mixed, to say the least. He was particularly irked by the phrase “Trurl the Magnificent.” But after a little thought he said, “All right, you can come in.”
He had it stand in the corner by the grandfather clock while he returned to his work, a squat machine on three short legs, which was almost completed—he was just putting on the finishing touches. After a while the Machine to Grant Your Every Wish cleared its throat and said:
“I’m still here.”
“I haven’t forgotten you,” said Klapaucius, not looking up. After another while the machine cleared its throat again and asked:
“May I ask what you’re making there?”
“Are you a Machine to Grant Wishes or a Machine to Ask Questions?” said Klapaucius, but added: “I need some blue paint.”
“I hope it’s the right shade,” said the machine, opening a door in its belly and pulling out a bucket of blue. Klapaucius dipped his brush in it without a word and began to paint. In the next few hours he needed sandpaper, some Carborundum, a brace and bit, white paint and one No. 5 screw, all of which the machine handed over on the spot.
That evening he covered his work with a sheet of canvas, had dinner, then pulled up a chair opposite the machine and said:
“Now we’ll see what you can do. So you say you can grant every wish…”
“Most every wish,” replied the machine modestly. “The paint, sandpaper and No. 5 screw were satisfactory, I hope?”
“Quite, quite,” said Klapaucius. “But now I have in mind something a bit more difficult. If you can’t do it, I’ll return you to your master with my kind thanks and a professional opinion.”
“All right, what is it?” asked the machine, fidgeting.
“A Trurl,” said Klapaucius. “I want a Trurl, the spit and image of Trurl himself, so alike that no one could ever tell them apart.”
The machine muttered and hummed and finally said:
“Very well, I’ll make you a Trurl. But please handle him with care—he is, after all, a truly magnificent constructor.”
“Oh but of course, you needn’t worry about that,” said Klapaucius. “Well, where is it?”
“What, right away?” said the machine. “A Trurl isn’t a No. 5 screw, you know. It’ll take time.”
But it wasn’t long at all before the door in the machine’s belly opened and a Trurl climbed out. Klapaucius looked it up and down and around, touched it, tapped it, but there wasn’t any doubt: here was a Trurl as much like the original Trurl as two peas in a pod. This Trurl squinted a little, unaccustomed to the light, but otherwise behaved in a perfectly normal fashion.
“Hello, Trurl!” said Klapaucius.
“Hello, Klapaucius! But wait, how did I get here?” Trurl answered, clearly bewildered.
“Oh, you just dropped in.… You know, I haven’t seen you in ages. How do you like my place?”
“Fine, fine… What do you have there under that canvas?”
“Nothing much. Won’t you take a seat?”
“Well, I really ought to be going. It’s getting dark…”
“Don’t rush off, you just got here!” protested Klapaucius. “And you haven’t seen my cellar yet.”
“Your cellar?”
“Yes, you should find it most interesting. This way…”
And Klapaucius put an arm around Trurl and led him to the cellar, where he tripped him, pinned him down and quickly tied him up, then took out a big crowbar and began to wallop the daylights out of him. Trurl howled, called for help, cursed, begged for mercy, but Klapaucius didn’t stop and the blows rang out and echoed in the dark and empty night.
“Ouch! Ouch!! Why are you beating me?!” yelled Trurl, cowering.
“It gives me pleasure,” explained Klapaucius, swinging back. “You should try it sometime, Trurl!”
And he landed him one on the head, which boomed like a drum.
“If you don’t let me go at once, I’ll tell the King and he’ll have you thrown in his deepest dungeon!!” screamed Trurl.
