I was alone. Quiet. Empty. Far above the Green Wall the wind, the birds were tossing about What did he mean?
My aero glided swiftly down the current. Light, heavy shadows of clouds; below—blue cupolas, cubes of glass ice turned leaden, swollen…
I opened my manuscript to jot down in these pages some thoughts that I believe will prove useful (to you, my readers), thoughts about the great Day of Unanimity, which is approaching. And then I realized I could not write tonight. I was listening constantly to the wind as it flapped its dark wings against the window; I was constantly turning back, waiting. For what? I did not know. And when the familiar brownish-pink gills appeared in ray room, I confess I was glad. She sat down, modestly smoothed out the fold of her unif which fell between her knees, quickly plastered me all over with her smiles, a piece on every crack— and I felt myself pleasantly, firmly bound.
“You know, I came to class today (she works at the Child-Rearing Factory) and found a caricature on, the wall. Yes, yes, I assure you! They drew me as a kind of fish. Perhaps I am really…”
“Oh, no, no, of course not,” I hastened to say. (From nearby, there was really nothing in her face resembling gills, and my words about gills had been entirely wrong.)
“Well, anyway, that isn’t important. But, you understand, the act itself. Naturally, I called out the Guardians. I am very fond of children, and I believe that the most difficult and noble love is— cruelty. Do you understand it?”
I certainly did! It echoed my own thoughts. I could not refrain from reading to her a fragment from my Twentieth Entry, beginning with “My thoughts tick quietly, with metallic clarity.”
Without looking up, I saw the quivering of her brown-pink cheeks, drawing closer and closer to me, and now her dry, hard, almost pricking fingers were on my hands.
“Give it to me, give it to me! I will record it and have the children memorize it. We need this more than your Venusians, we need it—today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.”
She glanced over her shoulder and almost whispered, “Have you heard? They say that on the Day of Unanimity…”
I jumped up. “What—what do they say? What about the Day of Unanimity?”
The comfortable walls had disappeared. I instantly felt myself flung out, there, where the immense wind tossed over the roofs and the slanting twilit clouds sank lower and lower…
U resolutely, firmly grasped my shoulders, although I noticed that, as if resonating to my own agitation, her bony fingers trembled.
“Sit down, my dear, don’t get upset. People say all sorts of things, it doesn’t matter. And then—if only you need it, I shall be with you on that day. I’ll leave my children with someone else and be with you; for you, my dear, are also a child, and you need…”
“No, no.” I waved her away. “Certainly not! Then you will really think that I am a child, that I cannot… by myself… Certainly not!” (I must confess that I had other plans for that day.)
She smiled. The unspoken meaning of the smile was obviously, “Ah, what an obstinate boy!” She sat down, eyes lowered, hands modestly straightening again the fold of her unif that dropped between her knees. And then she turned to something else. “I think I must decide… for your sake… No, I beg you, don’t hurry me, I must still think about it…”
I did not hurry her, although I realized that I ought to be pleased, and that there was no greater honor than gracing someone’s evening years.
All that night I was tormented by wings. I walked about shielding my head with my hands from the wings. And then, there was the chair. Not one of ours, not a modern glass chair, but an ancient wooden one. It moved like a horse—front right foot, rear left, front left, rear right. It ran up to my bed, climbed into it, and I made love to the wooden chair. It was uncomfortable and painful.
Amazing: can’t anyone invent a remedy for this dream-sickness? Or else turn it into something rational, or even useful?
Twenty-second Entry
Imagine yourself standing on the shore: the waves rise rhythmically, then, having risen, suddenly remain there—frozen, congealed. It seemed just as eerie and unnatural when our daily walk, prescribed by the Table of Hours, suddenly halted midway, and everyone was thrown into confusion. The last time something similar happened, according to our annals, was 119 years ago, when a meteorite dropped, smoking and whistling, right into the thick of the marching rows.
We walked as usual, in the manner of the warriors on Assyrian reliefs: a thousand heads, two fused, integral feet, two integral, swinging arms. At the end of the avenue, where the Accumulator Tower hummed sternly, a rectangle moved toward us. In front, behind, and on the sides—guards; in the middle—three people, the golden numbers already removed from their unifs. And everything was terrifyingly clear.
The huge clock atop the Tower was a face; leaning from the clouds, spitting down seconds, it waited indifferently. And then, exactly at six minutes past thirteen, something went wrong in the rectangle. It happened quite near me, and I saw every detail; I clearly remember the thin long neck and the network of blue veins on the temple, like rivers on the map of some tiny unknown world, and this unknown world was evidently a very young man. He must have noticed someone in our ranks; rising to his toes, he stretched his neck, and stopped. A click: one of the guards sent the blue spark of an electric whip across him, and he squealed thinly, like a puppy. Then—a series of distinct clicks, about every two seconds: a dick, and a squeal, a click, and a squeal.
We continued our rhythmic, Assyrian walk, and, looking at the graceful zigzags of the sparks, I thought: Everything in human society is being continually perfected—and should be. What a hideous weapon was the ancient whip—and how beautiful…
But at this moment, like a nut slipping off a machine in full swing, a slender, pliant female figure broke from our ranks and with the cry “Enough! Don’t dare to… !” she threw herself into the midst of the rectangle. It was like that meteor, 119 years ago: the whole procession stopped dead, and our ranks were like the gray crests of waves congealed by a sudden frost.
For a moment I looked at her as a stranger, like everyone else. She was no longer a number—she was only a human being, she existed only as the metaphysical substance of an insult thrown in the face of the One State. But then one of her movements—turning, she swung her hips to the left—and all at once I felt: I know, I know this body, pliant as a whip! My eyes, my lips, my arms know it! At that moment I was completely certain of it.
Two of the guards stepped out to intercept her.
In a second, their trajectories will cross over that still limpid, mirrorlike point of the pavement—in a moment she will be seized… My heart gulped, stopped, and without reasoning—is it allowed, forbidden, rational, absurd?—I flung myself toward that point.
I sensed upon me thousands of terrified, wide-open eyes, but this merely fed the desperate, gay, exulting strength of the hairy-armed savage who broke out of me, and he ran still faster. Only two steps remained. She turned…
Before me was a trembling, freckled face, red eyebrows… It was not she, not I-330.
Wild burst of joy. I wanted to cry out something like “Right, hold her!” but I heard only a whisper. And on my shoulder—a heavy hand. I was held, I was being taken somewhere, I tried to explain to them… “But listen, but you must understand, I thought that…”