I was silent. Something foreign was shadowing my face and I was unable to rid myself of it. Suddenly, all shining, light blue, she caught my hand; I felt her lips upon it. … It was for the first time in my life. … It was some ancient caress as yet unknown to me. … And I was so ashamed and it pained me so much that I swiftly, I think even roughly, pulled my hand away.
“Listen, you are crazy, it seems. … And anyway you … what are you happy about? Is it possible that you forget what is ahead of you? If not now, then within a month or two. …”
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
