Are you familiar with that strange state in which you wake up in the middle of the night, open your eyes into the darkness and then suddenly feel you are lost in the dark; you quickly, quickly begin to feel around, to seek something familiar and solid, a wall, a lamp, a chair? In exactly the same way I felt around, seeking in the Journal of the United State; quickly, quickly—I found this:
“The celebration of the Day of Unanimity, long awaited by all, took place yesterday. The same Well-Doer who so often proved his unshakeable wisdom, was unanimously reelected for the forty-eighth time. The celebration was clouded by a little confusion, created by the enemies of happiness, who by their action naturally lost the right to be the bricks for the foundation of the renovated United State. It is clear to everybody that to take into consideration their votes would mean to consider as a part of a magnificent, heroic symphony the accidental cough of a sick person who happened to be in a concert hall.”
Oh, great Sage! Is it really true that despite everything we are saved? What objection indeed can one find to this most crystalline syllogism? And further on a few more lines:
“Today at twelve o’clock a joint meeting of the Administrative Bureau, Medical Bureau, and Bureau of Guardians will take place. An important State decree is to be expected shortly.”
No, the Walls still stand erect. Here they are! I can feel them. And that strange feeling of being lost somewhere, of not knowing where I am—that feeling is gone. I am not surprised any longer to see the sky blue and the sun round and all the Numbers going to work as usual. …
I walked along the avenue with a particularly firm resounding step. It seemed to me that everyone else walked exactly like me. But at the crossing, on turning the corner, I noticed people strangely shying away, going around the corner of a building sidewise, as if a pipe had burst in the wall, as if cold water were spurting like a fountain on the sidewalk and it was impossible to cross it.
Another five or ten steps and I too felt a spurt of cold water that struck me and threw me from the sidewalk; at a height of approximately two meters a quadrangular piece of paper was pasted to the wall and on that sheet of paper—unintelligible, poisonously green letters:
Mephi
And under the paper—an S-like curved back and wing-ears shaking with anger or emotion. His right arm lifted as high as possible, his left arm hopelessly stretched out backward like a hurt wing, he was trying to jump high enough to reach the paper and tear it off but he was unable to do so. He was a fraction of an inch too short.
Probably every one of the passersby had the same thought: “If I go to help him, I, only one of the many, will he not think that I am guilty of something and that I am therefore anxious to. …”
I must confess, I had that thought. But remembering how many times he had proved my real Guardian-angel and how often he had saved me, I stepped towards him and with courage and warm assurance I stretched out my hand and tore off the sheet. S- turned around. The little drills sank quickly into me to the bottom and found something there. Then he lifted his left brow, winked toward the wall where “Mephi” had been hanging a minute ago. The tail of his little smile twinkled even with a certain pleasure which greatly surprised me. But why should I be surprised? A doctor always prefers a temperature of 40° C and a rash to the slow, languid rise of the temperature during the period of incubation of a disease; it enables him to determine the character of the disease. Mephi broke out today on the walls like a rash. I understood his smile.
In the passage to the underground railway, under our feet on the clean glass of the steps again a white sheet: Mephi. And also on the walls of the tunnel and on the benches and on the mirror of the car. (Apparently pasted on in haste as some were hanging on a slant.) Everywhere the same white gruesome rash.
I must confess that the exact meaning of that smile became clear to me only after many days which were overfilled with the strangest and most unexpected events.
The roaring of the wheels, distinct in the general silence, seemed to be the noise of infected streams of blood. Some Number was inadvertently touched on the shoulder and he started so that a package of papers fell out of his hands. To my left another Number was reading a paper, his eyes fixed always on the same line; the paper perceptibly trembled in his hands. I felt that everywhere, in the wheels, in the hands, in the newspapers, even in the eyelashes, the pulse was becoming more and more rapid and I thought it probable that today when I-330 and I should find ourselves there, the temperature would rise to 39°, 40°, perhaps 41° and. …
At the docks—the same silence filled with the buzzing of an invisible propeller. The lathes were silent as if brooding. Only the cranes were moving almost inaudibly as if on tiptoe, gliding, bending over, picking up with their tentacles the lumps of frozen air and loading the tanks of the Integral. We are already preparing the Integral for a trial flight.
“Well, shall we have her up in a week?” This was my question addressed to the Second Builder. His face is like porcelain, painted with sweet blue and tender pink little flowers (eyes and lips), but today those little flowers looked faded and washed-out. We were counting aloud when suddenly I broke off in the midst of a word and stopped, my mouth wide open; above the cupola, above the blue
