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 tip-toe, 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 lump lifted by the crane, there was a scarcely noticeable small white square. I felt my whole body trembling—perhaps with laughter. Yes! I myself heard my own laughter. (Did you ever hear your own laughter?)
“No, listen,” I said. “Imagine you are in an ancient aeroplane. The altimeter shows 5000 meters. A wing breaks; you are dashing down like.... And on the way you calculate: ‘Tomorrow from twelve to two ... from two to six ... and dinner at five!’ Would it not be absurd?”
The little blue flowers began to move and bulge out. What if I were made of glass and he could have seen what was going on within me at that moment? If he knew that some three or four hours later....
Record Twenty Seven
No Headings. It Is Impossible!
I was alone in the endless corridors. In those same corridors.... A mute, concrete sky. Water was dripping somewhere upon a stone. The familiar heavy opaque door,—and the subdued noise from behind it.
She said she would come out at sixteen sharp. It was already five minutes, then ten, then fifteen past sixteen. No one appeared. For a second I was my former self, horrified at the thought that the door might open.
“Five minutes more, and if she does not come out....”
Water was dripping somewhere upon a stone. No one about. With melancholy pleasure I felt: “saved,” and slowly I turned and walked back along the corridor. The trembling dots of the small lamps on the ceiling became dimmer and dimmer. Suddenly a quick rattle of a door behind me. Quick steps, softly echoing from the ceiling and the walls. It was she, light as a bird, panting somewhat from running.
“I knew you would be here, you would come! I knew you,—you....”
The spears of her eyelashes moved apart to let me in and ... how can I describe what effect that ancient, absurd and wonderful rite has upon me when her lips touch mine? Can I find a formula to express that whirlwind which sweeps out of my soul everything, everything save her? Yes, yes from my soul. You may laugh at me if you will.
She made an effort to raise her eyelids and her slow words too came with an effort:
“No. Now we must go.”
The door opened. Old, worn steps. An unbearably multicolored noise, whistling and light....
Twenty-four hours have passed since then and everything seems to have settled in me, yet it is most difficult for me to find words for even an approximate description.... It is as though a bomb had exploded in my head.... Open mouths, wings, shouts, leaves, words, stones, all these one after another in a heap....
I remember my first thought was: “Fast—back!” For it was clear to me that while I was waiting there in the corridors, they somehow had blasted and destroyed the Green Wall, and from behind it everything rushed in and splashed over our city which until then had been kept clean of that lower world. I must have said something of this sort to I-330. She laughed.
“No, we have simply come out beyond the Green Wall.”
Then I opened my eyes, and close to me, actually, I saw those very things which until then not a single living Number had ever seen otherwise than depreciated a thousand times, dimmed and hazy through the cloudy glass of the Wall.
The Sun,—it was no longer our light, evenly diffused over the mirror surface of the pavements; it seemed an accumulation of living fragments, of incessantly oscillating, dizzy spots which blinded the eyes. And the trees! Like candles rising into the very sky, or like spiders which squatted upon the earth, supported by their clumsy paws, or like mute green fountains. And all this was moving, jumping, rustling. Under my feet some strange little ball was crawling.... I stood as though rooted to the ground. I was unable to take a step because under my foot there was not an even plane, but (imagine!), something disgustingly soft, yielding, living, springy, green!...
I was dazed; I was strangled,—yes, strangled; it is the best word to express my state. I stood holding fast with both hands to a swinging branch.
“It is nothing. It is all right. It is natural,—for the first time. It will pass. Courage!”
At I-330’s side bouncing dizzily on a green net,—someone’s thinnest profile, cut out of paper. No, not “someone’s.” I recognized him. I remembered. It was the doctor. I understood everything very clearly. I realized that they both caught me beneath the arms and laughingly dragged me forward. My legs twisted and glided.... Terrible noise, cawing, stumps, yelling, branches, tree-trunks, wings, leaves, whistling....
The trees ran apart. A bright clearing. In the clearing, people, or perhaps to be more exact, beings. Now comes the most difficult part to describe for this was beyond any bounds of probability. It is clear to me now why I-330 was stubbornly silent about it before; I should not have believed it, should not have believed even her. It is even possible that tomorrow I shall not believe myself, shall not believe my own description in these pages.
In the clearing, around a naked, skull-like rock,—a noisy crowd of three or four hundred ... people. Well, let’s call them people. I find it difficult to coin new words. Just as on the stands you recognize in the general accumulation of faces only those which are familiar to you, so at first I recognized only our grayish-blue unifs. But one second later and I saw distinctly and clearly among the unifs dark, red, golden, black, brown and white humans—apparently they were humans. None of them had any clothes on, and their bodies were covered with short, glistening hair, like that which may be seen on the stuffed horse in the Prehistoric Museum. But their females had faces exactly, yes exactly, like the faces of our women: tender, rosy and not overgrown with hair. Also their breasts were free of hair, firm breasts of wonderful geometrical form. As to the males, only a part of their faces were free from hair, like our ancestors’, and the
