It will still be a while until the bell rings. I lie and think, and uncoil an extraordinarily strange logical chain.
To every equation, to every formula in the surface world, there is a corresponding curve or mass. We don’t know the corresponding masses to irrational formulas, to my √-1—we haven’t ever seen them … But the very horror of it all is that these masses—invisible masses—do exist. They necessarily, inevitably must exist because mathematics is like a screen on which the whimsical, prickly shadows of irrational formulas cross before us. Mathematics and death: neither makes mistakes. And if these masses are not evident in our world, on the surface, then it’s inescapable: they must have their own entire, enormous world there, behind the surface …
I jumped up without waiting for the bell, and ran around the room. My mathematics—until now, the only solid and stable island in my entire gone-crazy life—had also become detached, was floating, spinning. What, I mean, what is this absurd “soul”? Is it as real as my unif, as my boots (even though I cannot see them right now since they are behind the mirrored door of the closet)? And if boots are not a sickness—why is a “soul” a sickness?
I searched for and did not find the exit from this wild logical thicket. These were the same unknown and terrible jungles as those others, beyond the Green Wall, with extraordinary, incomprehensible, beings who speak without words. I felt as though I was seeing something through a sort of thick glass: it was infinitely vast and simultaneously infinitely small, it was scorpion-like with its hidden but nagging minus-pinch—it was √-1… But perhaps it was nothing other than my “soul” and like the legendary scorpion of the Ancients, it was voluntarily stinging itself with all that it could …
The bell. Day. All this hasn’t died and hasn’t disappeared but has been covered up by the light of day; like visible objects that don’t die but, toward night, are covered by the nightly darkness. In my head there is a light, wavering fog. Through the fog, I see: long glass tables; sphere-heads are chewing in time, slowly and silently. From a distance, through the fog, a metronome is tapping, and under the regular caress of this music, I count to fifty, mechanically, together with everyone: the fifty mandatory masticatory motions to each bite. I go downstairs, mechanically, on the beat, and I write my name down in the exit book, as everyone does. But I feel: I live separately from everyone else, alone, fenced in by a soft, soundmuffling wall, and behind this wall is my world …
But here is the thing: if this world is mine alone, then why is it in these records? Why are these absurd “dreams,” closets, and endless corridors here? It is with regret that I see, instead of an orderly and strict mathematical epic poem in honor of the One State—I see some kind of fantastic adventure novel emerging from me. Ah, if only this was really only some sort of novel, and not this new life of mine: full of X’s, √-1, and descents.
But it may be that this is for the best. It is highly likely that you, my unknown readers, are mere children in comparison with us (after all, we were bred by the One State, and consequently we have achieved the utmost pinnacle of human potentiality). And, like children, you will only swallow this bitter thing I am giving you if it is thoroughly coated with a thick adventuresome syrup.
EVENING
Is this feeling familiar to you: you are tearing along in an aero, in a blue upward spiral, the window is open, a whirlwind is whistling in your face, and there is no Earth, you forget all about the Earth, the Earth is as distant as Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus? That is how I live these days, with a whirlwind in my face—I have forgotten about the Earth and I have forgotten about sweet, pink O. But the Earth still exists, and sooner or later I must land on it again. But I shut my eyes before the days when that name is written into my Table of Sex Days—the name O-90 …
This evening the distant Earth reminded me of itself.
In order to fulfill the doctor’s orders (I sincerely, sincerely, want to recuperate), I wandered around the glassy, straight-line deserts of the avenues for a whole two hours. In accordance with the Table of Hours, everyone was in the auditorium, except me … This was, essentially, an unnatural sight. Imagine this: a human finger, cut off from the whole, from the hand—a separate human finger, stooping, bent down, skipping, running along a glass sidewalk. This finger is me. And the strangest, most unnatural thing of all is that the finger doesn’t want to be on the hand, with the others, at all. It wants to be alone, like (oh, all right, I have nothing left to hide), it either wants to be alone or to be with that woman again, pouring my whole self into her through our shoulders or the interlaced fingers of our hands …
I was returning to my building after the sun had started setting. An evening, pink ash was on the glass of the walls, on the gold of the spire of the Accumulator Tower, and in the voices and smiles of every passing cipher. Isn’t it strange: the rays of the extinguishing sun fall at the very same angle as those that light up the morning, but everything is completely different in this light, this pinkness is different—it’s so quiet and a little bitter-ish—but in the morning it will be ringing and fizzy again.
Downstairs, in the vestibule, U, the monitor, pulled a letter from underneath a heap of envelopes covered with pink ash and gave it to me. I will repeat: she is a very respectable woman, and I am sure that she has the best of intentions toward me. And yet, every time I see those hanging, fish-gill cheeks, I find it somehow unpleasant.
Stretching out her dry hand with the letter, U sighed. But this sigh only slightly swayed the curtain that separates me from the world: I was entirely projected onto the envelope trembling in my hands, in which—I didn’t doubt—was a letter from I-330.
Then there was a second sigh, so blatant, twice-underlined, that I tore myself away from the envelope and saw: through bashful eyes under lowered venetian blinds, between the gills, was a tender, smothering, blinding smile. And then: “Poor you, poor, poor …” A triple-underlined sigh and a barely perceptible nod toward the letter (the contents of the letter would have been known to her, naturally, as it is her duty to read them).
“No, really, I’m … Why do you say that?”
“No, no, my dear. I know you better than you know yourself. I have scrutinized you for a long time. And I can see that you need someone to take you by the hand and walk you through life, someone who has studied life for many years …”
I feel: all pasted over by her smile—it was plaster that was meant to cover the imminent wounds from this letter trembling in my hands. And finally—through the bashful venetian blinds—very quietly: “I will think about it, my dear, I’ll think about it. And be calm—if I feel up to it—no, no, I must first think about it a bit …”
Great Benefactor! Don’t tell me that I am meant to … don’t tell me she is saying that—
In my eyes there was a shimmering, there were thousands of sinusoids, and the letter was shuddering. I walk closer to the light, to the wall. There, the sun is dying down—on me, on the floor, on my hands, on the letter—everything was thick with dark pink, sad ash.
The envelope ripped open. Eyes straight to the signature. Then a wound—it was not I-330, not I-330, it was … O. Then another wound: a blurred smudge on the bottom right-hand corner of the page where a drop had fallen … I can’t stand smudges—whether it was the ink or from … it didn’t matter what it was from. And I know that, before now, this unpleasant stain would have been simply unpleasant to me, unpleasant to my eyes. But why then does this grayish speck now make everything turn leaden and darker, like a raincloud? Or—is this again my “soul”?
The Letter:
You know… or perhaps, you don’t know—I don’t write as well as I should—but anyway, you will know it now. For me, without you, there is no day, no morning, and no spring. R, to me, is only… well, that’s not important to you. In any case, I am very grateful to him: if I had been alone without him these last few days I don’t know what I would have … Over these last few days I have lived what seems like ten, maybe twenty years. And it is as if my room
is not four-cornered, but round and endless— around and around, everything is one and the same, and there is not a door anywhere.
I cannot stand life without you—because I love you. And I can see, I understand: you don’t need anyone anymore, anyone on earth, except that woman, that other woman, and, you see, it is exactly because I love you that I should—
I only need two or three more days to glue myself back together from these pieces into a resemblance of the former O-90—then I will go and remove my name from your list, and things should get better for you, things for you should be good. Never again will I bother you. Forgive me.
O
Never again. That, of course, would be better: she is right. But why do I, why do I—
RECORD NINETEEN
KEYWORDS: Infinitely Small of the Third Order. From Underneath Eyebrows. Over the Parapet.
There, in the strange corridor with the vibrating dotted line of dim lamps … Or no, no—not there: later, when I was with her in that forsaken corner in the courtyard of the Ancient House, she said: “The day after tomorrow.” This “day after tomorrow” is today and everything is on wings—the day is flying. And our Integral is now winged, too: they finished the construction of the rocket engine, and today started it up and let it idle. What magnificent, powerful salvos; for me, each of them was a salute to her honor, to the one and only, in honor of today.
Before the action began (= the blast), a dozen ciphers from our hangar were standing around and gaping under the barrel of the engine. Afterward, exactly nothing of them remained, except some crumbs and soot. I write this here with pride because the rhythm of our labor did not falter for even a second because of this—no one even flinched. We and our machines continued our straight-lined and circular movements with the same old precision, as if nothing had happened. A dozen ciphers are barely one hundred millionth part of the mass of the One State and, according to practical calculations, this is infinitely small of the third order. Arithmetically illiterate compassion was only something the Ancients knew; to us, it is amusing.
And it is amusing to me that yesterday I could ponder over some sorry, insignificant speck, some smudge, and even write about it in these pages. This is that same “softening” of the surface which should be amber-hard like our walls (there was an ancient saying, “like being up against a brick wall”).
It’s 16:00. I didn’t take an extra walk: I couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t decide, at any moment, when everything is sparkling in the sun, to come …
I am almost alone in the building. I can see far into the distance through the sun-flooded walls: there are rooms, hanging in the air, empty, mirrorly repeating one another to the right, to the left, and below. Only a gaunt gray shadow is slowly crawling up the bluish stairway, sketched in sunny ink. I can already hear its footsteps. Now I can see it through the door. I feel it: a plaster-smile pasted on me as it goes past, to the other stairway, and continues upward …
The intercom clicked. I threw my whole self at the narrow white panel and … and it was some unfamiliar male cipher (it started with a consonant). There was a buzzing and the elevator door banged. In front of me was a forehead, sloppily pulled aslant over a pair of eyes … what a very strange effect: it was as if he were speaking from that place, from underneath his eyebrows, where his eyes were.
“A letter to you from her” (this, from underneath his eyebrows, from under the overhang). “She requests that you—without fail— do everything it says.”
From underneath his eyebrows, from under the overhang, he looked around. Yes, yes, there is no one, nobody is here, well, give it to me, then! Looking around once more, he thrust the envelope at me and left. I was alone.
No, I was not alone: a pink ticket fell from the envelope and there it was, though hardly discernible—her scent. It’s her, she is coming, coming to me. Quick—the letter, I must read it all with my own eyes, so I can actually believe it …
What? It is not possible! I read it again, hopping through the lines: “The ticket … and you must lower the blinds, as if I was actually there with you … It is absolutely necessary that they think that I … I am very … very sorry …”
The letter: torn into shreds. My mangled, broken eyebrows appear in the mirror for a second. I took up the ticket, about to do the same to it as I had done to her letter and—
“She requests that you—without fail—do everything it says.”
My hands weakened, unclenched. The ticket fell onto the table. She is stronger than me, and it looks as though I will do exactly what she wants. But then again … then again, I don’t know. We will see—this evening is still far off. The ticket lay on the table.
My mangled, broken eyebrows appear in the mirror. Why don’t I have a doctor’s certificate today? I would have gone for a walk and walked around the whole of the Green Wall without stopping and then fallen into bed, to the depths … But I must be off to auditorium 13, I must screw myself up tightly so that for two hours—for two hours I do not stir … though I need to scream and stamp my feet.
The lecture. It was very strange that the voice from the glittering apparatus was not metallic, as usual, but a kind of soft, shaggy, mossy voice. It was female—what she might have looked like in the flesh flickers through my mind: a petite thing, a little hook of an old woman, like the one at the Ancient House.
The Ancient House … suddenly everything rushes up like a fountain from below and I have to screw myself up so tightly, with all my strength, so I don’t flood the whole auditorium with a scream. The soft, shaggy words go right through me, and there is only one thing from it all that stays with me: something to do with children and child-breeding. I am like a photographic negative— everything is imprinted on me with a sort of foreign, strange, meaningless precision. A golden crescent: the reflection of light on the loudspeaker. Underneath it is a child—a living illustration— reaching for the crescent; the hem of its microscopic unif is pushed into its mouth; a little fist, tightly squeezed, with its thumb (a very little one, I suppose) shoved inside; and a light, chubby shadow, the crease on its wrist. These things imprinted themselves on me, like they would on a photographic negative. Then its naked foot stretched out over the edge, a pink fan of toes was stepping into the air—and then—then toward the floor—
And a female scream flapped up to the stage with the invisible wings of a unif, grabbed the child with her lips—by its chubby wrist-crease—and shifted it to the middle of the table, then left the stage. I was imprinted again: a pink half-moon mouth with its small horns turned downward and blue saucer-eyes filled to the brim. It was O. And I felt as though I was before some sort of well-proportioned formula; I suddenly sensed the necessity and legitimacy of this insignificant event.
She had been sitting a little bit behind me and to the left. I turned around to look: she obediently drew her eyes away from the table with the child and her eyes pointed to me, into me. And again: I, she, and the table on the stage were three points, and a line was being drawn between these points—a projection of inevitable but as yet unforeseen events.
Then home, along the streets, green and dusky but sharp-sighted with streetlamps. I hear something: I am ticking like a clock. And the hands of this clock are now proceeding over some digit: I am about to do something from which there is no turning back. She needs someone to think that she is at my place. But I need her and I don’t care about her “needs.” I don’t want to be someone else’s blinds. And that’s all there is to it.
Behind me there is a familiar, puddle-squelching gait. I don’t look around but I already know who it is: S. He will follow me all the way to the door of my building and then he’ll probably stand below on the sidewalk with his gimlets screwing upward toward my room until my crime-hiding blinds fall …
He, my guardian angel, had put an end to the matter. I was decided: I wouldn’t do it. I was decided.
When I climbed up to my room and turned on the lights, I couldn’t believe my eyes: O was standing by my table. O
r, more accurately, she was hanging there: like an empty dress hanging after being taken off. Underneath her dress it seemed she was missing a spring; her arms and her legs were springless and her voice, hanging there, was springless, too.
“I … about my letter. Did you get it? Yes? I need to know your answer—I need to know right now.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I looked at her blue, brimming eyes with pleasure—as if everything was all her fault—and I lingered over my answer. I struck her with my words, one by one, with a certain pleasure, saying: “Answer? What … You are right. Without a doubt. About everything.”
“So, that means …” There was the slightest tremble coating her smile, but I could see it. “Well, that’s very good! I will now—now I’ll go.”
And she stayed hanging over the table. Downcast eyes, legs and arms. I-330’s crumpled pink ticket was still on the table. I quickly unfurled this manuscript—my “WE”—covering the ticket with its pages (it may be that I was hiding it from myself more than from O).
“Look. I’m writing everything down. It’s already ninety-nine pages long … Something very surprising is emerging.”
A voice—a shadow of a voice: “But remember … when you were on page seven and I … I let a teardrop fall on it—and you …”
Inaudible, hasty droplets brimming over blue saucers, down her cheeks and words, hastily brimming over, too: “I can’t anymore, I must go now … I won’t ever come here again, never. But the only thing I want … All I need is a baby from you—give me a baby and I will go, I’ll go!”
I could see: she was all atremble under her unif, and I could feel myself also start to—I put my hands behind me and smiled: “What? Now you’re after the Machine of the Benefactor?”
And back at me with another word-torrent over a dam: “Fine! But, you see, I would still get to feel—get to feel it inside me. And even if I only get to see it for a few days … Just to see its little wrist-crease, just here—like that baby on the stage. Just for one day!”