Another hair’s breadth. A pause. Silence. My pulse. Then, all at once, as at a signal from some mad conductor, shouts, crashing on all the platforms, the whirl of unifs swept in flight, the figures of the Guardians rushing about helplessly, someone’s heels in the air before my eyes, and near them someone’s mouth wide open in a desperate, unheard scream. For some reason, this etched itself in memory more sharply than anything else: thousands of silently screaming mouths, as on some monstrous movie screen.
And just as on a screen—somewhere far below, for a second—O’s whitened lips. Pressed to the wall of a passage, she stood shielding her stomach with crossed arms. Then she was gone, swept away, or I forgot her because…
This was no longer on a screen—it was within me, in my constricted heart, in my hammering temples. Over my head on the left, R-13 jumped suddenly up on the bench—spluttering, red, frenzied. In his arms—I-330, her unif torn from shoulder to breast, red blood on white… She held him firmly around the neck, and he, repulsive and agile as a gorilla, was carrying her up, away, bounding in huge leaps from bench to bench.
As during a fire in ancient days, everything turned red before me, and only one impulse remained—to jump, to overtake them. I cannot explain to myself where I found such strength, but, like a battering ram, I tore through the crowd, stepping on shoulders, benches—and now I was upon them; I seized R by the collar: “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, I say. Let her go. This very moment!” (My voice was inaudible—everyone shouted, everyone ran.)
“Who? What is it? What?” R turned, his sputtering lips shaking. He must have thought he had been seized by one of the Guardians.
“What? I won’t have it, I won’t allow it! Put her down—at once!”
He merely slapped his lips shut in anger, tossed his head, and ran on. And at this point—I am terribly ashamed to write about it, but I feel I must, I must record it, so that you, my unknown readers, may learn the story of my sickness to the very end—at this point I swung at his head. You understand—I struck him! I clearly remember this. And I remember, too, the feeling of release, the lightness that spread throughout my body from this blow.
I-330 quickly slipped down from his arms.
“Get away,” she cried to R. “Don’t you see, he’s… Get away, R, go!”
Baring his white, Negroid teeth, R spurted some word into my face, dived down, disappeared. And I lifted I-330 into my arms, pressed her firmly to myself, and carried her away.
My heart was throbbing—enormous—and with each heartbeat, a rush of such a riotous, hot wave of joy. And who cared if something somewhere had been smashed to bits—what did it matter! Only to carry her so, on and on…
It is with difficulty that I hold the pen in my hand: I am so exhausted after all the dizzying events of this morning. Is it possible that the sheltering, age-old walls of the One State have toppled? Is it possible that we are once again without house or roof, in the wild state of freedom, like our distant ancestors? Is there indeed no Benefactor? Against… On Unanimity Day? I am ashamed, I am pained and frightened for them. But then, who are “they”? And who am I? “They,” “We”—do I know?
She sat on the sun-heated glass bench, on the topmost platform, where I had brought her. Her right shoulder and below—the beginning of the miraculous, incalculable curve—bare; the thinnest, serpentine, red trickle of blood. She did not seem to notice the blood, the bared breast… no, she saw it all—but this was precisely what she needed now, and if her unif were buttoned up, she would rip it open herself, she…
“And tomorrow…” she breathed greedily through gleaming, clenched, sharp teeth. “No one knows what tomorrow will be. Do you understand— I do not know, no one knows—tomorrow is the unknown! Do you understand that everything known is finished? Now all things will be new, unprecedented, inconceivable.”
Below, the crowds were seething, rushing, screaming. But all that was far away, and growing farther, because she looked at me, she slowly drew me into herself through the narrow golden windows of her pupils. Long, silently. And for some reason I thought of how once, long ago, I had also stared through the Green Wall into someone’s incomprehensible yellow eyes, and birds were circling over the Wall (or was this on some other occasion?).
“Listen: if nothing extraordinary happens tomorrow, I will take you there—do you understand?”
No, I did not understand. But I nodded silently. I was dissolved, I was infinitely small, I was a point…
There is, after all, a logic of its own (today’s logic) in this condition: a point contains more unknowns than anything else; it need but stir, move, and it may turn into thousands of curves, thousands of bodies.
I was afraid to stir: what would I turn into? And it seemed to me that everyone, like me, was terrified of the slightest movement.
At this moment, as I write this, everyone sits in his own glass cage, waiting for something. I do not hear the humming of the elevator usual at this hour, I hear no laughter, no steps. Now and then I see, in twos, glancing over their shoulders, people tiptoe down the corridor, whispering…
What will happen tomorrow? What will I turn into tomorrow?
Twenty-sixth Entry
Morning. Through the ceiling, the sky—firm, round, ruddy-cheeked as ever. I think I would be less astonished if I had seen above me some extraordinary square sun; people in varicolored garments of animal skins; stone, untransparent walls, Does it mean, then, that the world—our world—still exists? Or is this merely by inertia? The generator is already switched off, but the gears still clatter, turning—two revolutions, three, and on the fourth they’ll stop…
Are you familiar with this strange condition? You wake at night, open your eyes to blackness, and suddenly you feel you’ve lost your way—and quickly, quickly you grope around you, seeking something familiar, solid—a wall, a lamp, a chair. This was exactly how I groped around me, ran through the pages of the One State Gazette—quick, quick. And then:
Yesterday we celebrated Unanimity Day, which everyone has long awaited with impatience. For the forty-eighth time, the Benefactor, who has demonstrated his steadfast wisdom on so many past occasions, was elected by a unanimous vote. The celebration was marred by a slight disturbance, caused by the enemies of happiness. These enemies have, naturally, forfeited the right to serve as bricks in the foundation of the One State—a foundation renewed by yesterday’s election. It is clear to everyone that taking account of their votes would be as absurd as considering the coughs of some sick persons in the audience as a part of a magnificent heroic symphony.
Oh, all-wise! Are we, after all, saved in spite of everything? Indeed, what objection can be raised to this most crystal clear of syllogisms?
And two lines further:
Today at twelve there will be a joint session of the Administrative Office, the Medical Office, and the Office of the Guardians. An important state action will take place within the next few days.
No, the walls are still intact. Here they are—I can feel them. And I no longer have that strange sensation that I am lost, that I am in some unknown place and do not know the way. And it’s no longer surprising that I see the blue sky, the round sun. And everyone—as usual—is going to work.
I walked along the avenue with especially firm, ringing steps, and it seemed to me that everybody else walked with the same assurance. But when I turned at a crossing, I saw that everybody shied off sideways from the corner building, gave it a wide berth—as if a pipe had burst there and cold water were gushing out, making it impossible to use the sidewalk.