Then—streets empty as if swept by a plague. I remember I stumbled over something disgustingly soft, yielding yet motionless. I bent down—a corpse. It was lying flat, the legs apart. The face. … I recognized the thick negro lips which even now seemed to sprinkle with laughter. His eyes, firmly screwed in, laughed into my face. One second. … I stepped over him and ran. I could no longer. … I had to have everything done as soon as possible, or else I felt I would break, I would break in two like an overloaded sail. …
Luckily it was not more than twenty steps away; I already saw the sign with the golden letters: “The Bureau of Guardians.” At the door I stopped for a moment to gulp down as much air as I could and stepped in.
Inside, in the corridor stood an endless chain of numbers, holding small sheets of paper and heavy notebooks. They moved slowly, advancing a step or two and stopping again. I began to be tossed about along the chain, my head was breaking to pieces; I pulled them by the sleeves, I implored them as a sick man implores to be given something that would even at the price of sharpest pain end everything, forever.
A woman with a belt tightly clasped around her waist over the unif and with two distinctly protruding squatty hemispheres tossing about as if she had eyes on them, chuckled at me:
“He has a bellyache! Show him to the room second door to the right!”
Everybody laughed, and because of that laughter something rose in my throat; I felt I should either scream or … or. …
Suddenly from behind someone touched my elbow. I turned around. Transparent wing-ears! But they were not pink as usual; they were purplish red; his Adam’s apple was tossing about as though ready to tear the covering. …
Quickly boring into me: “What are you here for?”
I seized him.
“Quickly! Please! Quickly! … into your office. … I must tell everything … right away. … I am glad that you. … It may be terrible that it should be you to whom. … But it is well, it is well. …”
He too, knew her; this made it even more tormenting for me. But perhaps he too, would tremble when he should hear. … And we would both be killing. … And I would not be alone at that, my supreme second. …
The door closed with a slam. I remember a piece of paper was caught beneath the door and it rustled on the floor when the door closed. And then a strange airless silence covered us as if a glass bell were put over us. If only he had uttered a single, most insignificant word, no matter what, I should have told him everything at once. But he was silent. So keyed up that I heard a noise in my ears, I said without looking at him:
“I think I always hated her from the very beginning. … I struggled. … Or, no, no, don’t believe me; I could have but I did not want to save myself; I wanted to perish; this was dearer to me than anything else … and even now, even this minute, when I know already everything. … Do you know that I was summoned to the Well-Doer?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But what he told me! Please realize that it was equivalent to … it was as if someone should remove the floor from under you this minute, and you and all here on the desk, the papers, the ink … the ink would splash out and cover everything with blots. …”
“What else? What further? Hurry up, others are waiting!”
Then stumbling, muttering, I told him everything that is recorded in these pages. … About my real self, and about my hairy self, and about my hands … yes … exactly that was the beginning. And how I would not do my duty then, and how I lied to myself, and how she obtained false certificates for me, and how I grew worse and worse, every day, and about the long corridors underground, and there beyond the Wall. …
All this I threw out in formless pieces and lumps. I would stutter and fail to find words. The lips double-curved in a smile would prompt me with the word I needed and I would nod gratefully: “Yes, yes!”. … Suddenly, what was it? He was talking for me and I only listened and nodded: “Yes, yes,” and then, “Yes, exactly so, … yes, yes. …”
I felt cold around my mouth as though it were wet with ether, and I asked with difficulty:
“But how is it. … You could not learn anywhere. …”
He smiled a smile growing more and more curved; then:
“But I see that you do want to conceal from me something. For example, you enumerated everything you saw beyond the Wall but you failed to mention one thing. You deny it? But don’t you remember that once, just in passing, just for a second you saw me there? Yes, yes me!”
Silence.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, it became shamelessly clear to me: he—he too—. And all myself, my torment, all that I brought here, crushed by the burden, plucking up my last strength as if performing a great feat, all appeared to me only funny—like the ancient anecdote about Abraham and Isaac; Abraham all in a cold sweat, with the knife already raised over his son, over himself—and suddenly a voice from above: “Never mind. … I was only joking.”
Without taking my eyes from the smile which grew more and more curved, I put my hands on the edge of the desk and slowly, very slowly pushed myself with my chair away from him. Then instantly gathering myself into my own hands, I dashed madly out, past loud voices, past steps and mouths. …
I do not remember how I got into one of the public restrooms at a station of the Underground Railway. Above, everything was perishing; the greatest civilization, the most rational in human history was crumbling—but here, by some irony everything remained as before, beautiful. The walls shone; water murmured cosily and like the water—the unseen, transparent
