Tomorrow is Unanimity Day. She will, of course, be there too, I’ll see her, but only from a distance. From a distance – that will be painful, because I must, I am irresistibly drawn to be near her, so that her hands, her shoulder, her hair… But I long even for this pain – let it come.
Great Benefactor! How absurd – to long for pain. Who doesn’t know that pain is a negative value, and that the sum of pain diminishes the sum we call happiness? And hence…
And yet – there is no “hence.” Everything is blank. Bare.
Through the glass walls of the house – a windy, feverishly pink, disquieting sunset. I turn my chair away from that intruding pinkness and turn the pages of my notes. And I can see: again I have forgotten that I am writing not for myself, but for you, unknown readers, whom I love and pity – for you who are still trudging somewhere below, behind, in distant centuries.
Well, then – about Unanimity Day, this great holiday. I have always loved it, since childhood. It seems to me that to us it has a meaning similar to that of “Easter” to the ancients. I remember, on the eve of this day I would prepare for myself a sort of hour calendar – then happily cross out each hour: an hour nearer, an hour less to wait… If I were certain that nobody would see it, honestly, I would carry such a little calendar with me even today, watching by it how many hours remain until tomorrow, when I will see – if only from a distance…
(I was interrupted: they brought me a new unif, fresh from the factory. We usually receive new unifs for this day. In the hallway outside – steps, joyful exclamations, noise.)
I continue. Tomorrow I will see the spectacle which is repeated year in, year out, and yet is ever new, and ever freshly stirring: the mighty chalice of harmony, the reverently upraised arms. Tomorrow is the day of the annual elections of the Benefactor. Tomorrow we shall again place in the Benefactor’s hands the keys to the imperishable fortress of our happiness.
Naturally, this is entirely unlike the disorderly, disorganized elections of the ancients, when-absurd to say – the very results of the elections were unknown beforehand. Building a state on entirely unpredictable eventualities, blindly – what can be more senseless? And yet apparently it needed centuries before man understood this.
Needless to say, among us, in this respect as in all others, there is no room for eventualities; nothing unexpected can occur. And the elections themselves are mainly symbolic, meant to remind us that we are a single, mighty, million-celled organism, that – in the words of the ancients – we are the Church, one and indivisible. Because the history of the One State knows of no occasion when even a single voice dared to violate the majestic unison.
It is said that the ancients conducted their elections in some, secret manner, concealing themselves like thieves. Some of our historians even assert that they came to the election ceremonies carefully masked. (I can imagine that fantastically gloomy sight: night, a square, figures in dark cloaks moving stealthily along the walls; the scarlet flame of torches flattened by the wind…) No one has yet discovered the full reason for all this secrecy; it is most likely that elections were connected with some mystical, superstitious, or even criminal rites. But we have nothing to conceal or be ashamed of; we celebrate elections openly, honestly, in broad daylight I see everyone voting for the Benefactor; everyone sees me voting for the Benefactor. And, indeed, how could this be otherwise, since “everyone” and “I” are a single “We.” How infinitely more ennobling, sincere, and lofty this is than the cowardly, stealthy “secrecy” of the ancients! And also – how much more expedient. For even assuming the impossible – some dissonance in the usual monophony – the unseen Guardians are right there, in our ranks. They can immediately take note of the numbers of those who have strayed and save them from further false steps – thus saving the One State from them. And, finally, one more…
Through the wall on the left – a woman hastily unfastening her unif before the glass door of the closet. And for a second, a glimpse of eyes, lips, two sharp rosy points… Then the blind falls, and all that happened yesterday is instantly upon me, and I no longer know what “finally, one more” was meant to be, I want to know nothing about it, nothing! I want one thing – I-330. I want her with me every minute, any minute, always – only with me. And all that I have just written about Unanimity is unnecessary, entirely beside the point, I want to cross it out, tear it up, throw it away. Because I know (this may be blasphemy, but it is true), the only holiday for me is to be with her, to have her near me, shoulder to shoulder. And without her, tomorrow’s sun will be nothing but a small circle cut of tin, and the sky, tin painted blue, and I myself…
I snatch the telephone receiver. “I-330, is it you?”
“Yes, I. You’re calling so late.”
“Perhaps it is not too late. I want to ask you… I want you to be with me tomorrow. Darling…”
I said the last word almost in a whisper. And for some reason, the memory of an incident this morning at the building site flashed before me. In jest, someone had placed a watch under a hundred-ton hammer – the hammer swung, a gust of wind in the face, and a hundred tons delicately, quietly came to rest upon the fragile watch.
A pause. It seems to me that I hear someone’s whisper there, in her room. Then her voice: “No, I cannot. You understand – I would myself… No, no, I cannot. Why? You will see tomorrow.”
Twenty-fifth Entry
Topics: Descent from Heaven. The Greatest Catastrophe in History. The Known Is Ended
Before the ceremony, everyone stood still and, like a solemn, slow canopy, the Hymn swayed over our heads – hundreds of trumpets from the Music Plant and millions of human voices – and for a second I forgot everything. I forgot the disquieting hints of I-330 about today’s celebration; I think I forgot even her. I was the boy who had once wept on this day over a tiny spot on his unif, visible to no one but himself. No one around may see the black, indelible spots I am covered with, but I know that I – a criminal – have no right to be among these frank, wide-open faces. If I could only stand up and shout, scream out everything about myself. And let it mean the end – let it! – if only for a moment I can feel myself as pure and thoughtless as this childishly innocent blue sky.
All eyes were raised. In the unblemished morning blue, still moist with night’s tears – a barely visible speck, now dark, now glowing in the sun’s rays. It was He, the new Jehovah, coming down to us from heaven, as wise and loving-cruel as the Jehovah of the ancients. He came nearer and nearer, and millions of hearts rose higher and higher to meet Him. Now He sees us. And, together with Him, I mentally look down from above on the concentric circles of the platforms, marked by the thin blue dotted lines of our unifs, like cobweb circles spangled with microscopic suns (our gleaming badges). And in a moment, He will sit down in the center of the cobweb, the white wise Spider – the white-robed Benefactor, who has wisely bound us hand and foot with the beneficent nets of happiness.
But now His majestic descent from heaven was completed, the brass tones of the Hymn were silent, everyone sat down – and instantly I knew: all of this was indeed the finest cobweb; it was stretched tautly, it quivered – in a moment it would break and something unthinkable would happen…