Speaker 1: Section fifteen of we Featuring Records thirty and thirty one.
Speaker 1: This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Qui by Yevgenis Amuten, translated by Gregory Zilberg.
Speaker 1: Record thirty the last number Galileo's mistake? Would it not
Speaker 1: be better? Here is my conversation with I three thirty,
Speaker 1: which took place in the ancient house yesterday, in the
Speaker 1: midst of loud noise, among colors which stifled the logical
Speaker 1: course of my thoughts red green, bronze, saffron, yellow, orange colors,
Speaker 1: and all the while under the motionless marble smile of
Speaker 1: that snub nosed ancient poet. I shall reproduce the conversation
Speaker 1: word by word, for it seems to me that it
Speaker 1: may have an enormous and decisive importance for the fate
Speaker 1: of the United States, more than that for the fate
Speaker 1: of the universe. Besides reading it, you, my unknown readers,
Speaker 1: may find some justification for me. I three thirty, without preliminaries,
Speaker 1: at once threw everything upon my head. I know that
Speaker 1: the day after tomorrow the first trial trip of the
Speaker 1: Integral is to take place on that day. We shall
Speaker 1: take possession of it. What day after tomorrow? Yes, sit
Speaker 1: down and don't be upset. We cannot afford to lose
Speaker 1: a minute. Among the hundreds who were arrested yesterday there
Speaker 1: were twenty mefis. To let pass two or three days
Speaker 1: means that they will perish. I was silent as observers
Speaker 1: on the trial trip. They will send electricians, mechanicians, physicians, meteorologists,
Speaker 1: et cetera. At twelve sharp, you must remember this. When
Speaker 1: the bell rings for dinner, we shall remain in the passage,
Speaker 1: lock them all up in the dining hall, and the
Speaker 1: Integral be ours. You realize that it is most necessary happen.
Speaker 1: What may The Integral in our hands will be a
Speaker 1: tool that will help us put in an into everything
Speaker 1: at once without pain their arrows, they would be insignificant
Speaker 1: mosquitoes against a buzzard. And then, if it proves inevitable,
Speaker 1: we may direct the tubes of the motors downward, and
Speaker 1: by their work alone, I jumped up. It is inconceivable,
Speaker 1: it is absurd. Is it not clear to you that
Speaker 1: what you are contriving is a revolution? Yes? A revolution.
Speaker 1: Why is it absurd? Absurd? Because a revolution is impossible,
Speaker 1: Because our I speak for myself and for you, our
Speaker 1: revolution was the last one. No other revolutions may occur.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that a mocking sharp triangle of brows. My dear,
Speaker 1: you are a mathematician, are you not more than that?
Speaker 1: A philosopher? Mathematician? Well, then name the last number? What
Speaker 1: is I cannot understand which last? The last one? The
Speaker 1: highest to the largest I three thirty. It is absurd
Speaker 1: since the number of numbers is in How can there
Speaker 1: be a last one? And why then do you think
Speaker 1: there is a last revolution? There is no last revolution?
Speaker 1: Their number is infinite. The last one is a children's story.
Speaker 1: Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is necessary
Speaker 1: that children should not be frightened, so that they may
Speaker 1: sleep through the night. But what is the use? What
Speaker 1: is the use of it all for the sake of
Speaker 1: the well doer? What is the use? Since all are
Speaker 1: happy already? All right? Even suppose that is so? What further?
Speaker 1: How funny a purely childish question? You tell something to
Speaker 1: children come to the very end, Yet they will invariably
Speaker 1: ask you what further? And what for children? Are the
Speaker 1: only courageous philosophers. And courageous philosophers are invariably children. One
Speaker 1: ought always to ask, like children, what further? Nothing further?
Speaker 1: Period in the whole world evenly everywhere there is distributed
Speaker 1: ah evenly everywhere. That is the point entropy, psychological entropy.
Speaker 1: Don't you with the mathematician, know that only differences, only
Speaker 1: differences in temperature, only thermic contrast, make for life. And
Speaker 1: if all over the world they are evenly warm or
Speaker 1: evenly cold bodies, they must be pushed off in order
Speaker 1: to get flame explosions. And we shall push but I
Speaker 1: three thirty. Please realize that our ancestors during the Two
Speaker 1: Hundred Years War did exactly that. Oh, they were right
Speaker 1: a thousand times right. It did one wrong thing. However,
Speaker 1: later they began to believe that they were the last number,
Speaker 1: a number that does not exist in nature. Their mistake
Speaker 1: was the mistake of Galileo. He was right in that
Speaker 1: the Earth revolves around the Sun, but he did not
Speaker 1: know that our whole solar system revolves about some other center.
Speaker 1: He did not know that the real, not relative, orbit
Speaker 1: of the Earth is not a naive circle. And you,
Speaker 1: the MEFI, we for the time being, we know that
Speaker 1: there is no last number. We may forget that some day.
Speaker 1: Of course, we shall certainly forget it when we grow old.
Speaker 1: As everything inevitably grows old, then we shall inevitably fall
Speaker 1: like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the day
Speaker 1: after tomorrow. No, no, dear, not you personally, You are
Speaker 1: with us, are you not? You are with us? Flaming, stormy, sparkling.
Speaker 1: I never before had seen her in such a state.
Speaker 1: She embraced me with her whole self. I disappeared, her
Speaker 1: last word, looking steadily deeply into my eyes. Then, do
Speaker 1: not forget? At twelve o'clock sharp, and I answered, yes,
Speaker 1: I remember. She left. I was alone amidst a rebellious,
Speaker 1: multi voiced commotion of blue, red, green, saffron, yellow, and orange.
Speaker 1: Yes at twelve Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on
Speaker 1: my face, of something implanted that can not be brushed off. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: yesterday morning, and you and all, she shouted into the
Speaker 1: face of I three thirty. Why, how absurd? I hastened
Speaker 1: to get out of the house and home home. Somewhere
Speaker 1: behind me, I heard the chattering of birds beyond the
Speaker 1: wall and ahead of me in the setting sun, the
Speaker 1: balls of cupolas made of red crystallized fire, enormous flaming cubes, houses,
Speaker 1: and the sharp point of the accumulating tower high in
Speaker 1: the sky, like a paralyzed streak of lightning. And all this,
Speaker 1: all this impeccable, most geometric beauty. Shall I I myself
Speaker 1: with my hands? Is there no way out, no path,
Speaker 1: no trail. I passed by an auditorium. I do not
Speaker 1: recall its number. Inside the benches were stacked along the walls.
Speaker 1: In the middle tables covered with snow white glass sheets
Speaker 1: with pink stains of sunny blood on the white. There
Speaker 1: was foreshadowed, and all that some unknown and therefore alarming tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It is unnatural for a thinking and seeing human being
Speaker 1: to live among irregularities unknowns x's. If suddenly your eyes
Speaker 1: were covered with a bandage, and you were let go,
Speaker 1: to feel around, to stumble, ever, aware that somewhere very
Speaker 1: close to you there is the borderline. One step only
Speaker 1: in nothing but a compressed, smothered piece of flesh will
Speaker 1: be left of you. I now feel somewhat like that.
Speaker 1: And what if, without waiting for anything, I should just
Speaker 1: head down? Would it not be the only right thing
Speaker 1: to do, to disentangle everything at once, Record thirty one,
Speaker 1: the great operation I forgave everything, the collision of trains,
Speaker 1: saved at the very last moment, when it seemed that
Speaker 1: there was nothing left to hold on to, that it
Speaker 1: was the end. It was as if you already ascended
Speaker 1: the steps towards the threatening machine of the well doer,
Speaker 1: whereas if the great glass, with a heavy thud, already
Speaker 1: covered you, and for the last time in your life,
Speaker 1: you looked at the blue sky, to swallow it with
Speaker 1: your eyes, when suddenly it was only a dream. The
Speaker 1: sun is pink and cheerful, and the wall. What happiness
Speaker 1: to be able to touch the cold wall, and the pillow,
Speaker 1: to delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your
Speaker 1: own head in the white pillow. This is approximately what
Speaker 1: I felt when I read the State Journal this morning.
Speaker 1: It had all been a terrible dream, and this dream
Speaker 1: is over, and I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that
Speaker 1: I thought of selfish voluntary death. I am ashamed now
Speaker 1: to reread the last lines of yesterday, but let them
Speaker 1: remain as a memory of that incredible might have happened,
Speaker 1: which will not happen. On the front page of the
Speaker 1: State Journal. The following gleamed, Rejoice, for from now on
Speaker 1: we are perfect. Before today, your own creation in engines
Speaker 1: were more perfect than you. Why, for every spark from
Speaker 1: a dynamo is a spark of pure reason, each motion
Speaker 1: of a piston a pure syllogism. Is it not true
Speaker 1: that the same faultless reason is within you? The philosophy
Speaker 1: of the cranes, presses, and pumps is finished and clear,
Speaker 1: like a circle. But is your philosophy less circular? The
Speaker 1: beauty of a mechanism lies in its immutable, precise rhythm,
Speaker 1: like that of a pendulum. But have you not become
Speaker 1: as precise as a pendulum, you who are brought up
Speaker 1: on the system of tailor. Yes, but there is one difference.
Speaker 1: Mechanisms have no fancy. Did you ever notice a pump
Speaker 1: cylinder during its work show upon its face a wide, distant,
Speaker 1: sensuously dreaming smile. Did you ever hear cranes restlessly toss
Speaker 1: about and sigh at night during the hours designed for
Speaker 1: rest No yet on your faces? You may well blush
Speaker 1: with shame. The guardians have seen more and more frequently
Speaker 1: those smiles, and they have heard your sighs and you
Speaker 1: should hide your eyes for shame. The historians of the
Speaker 1: United States all tendered their resignations so as to be
Speaker 1: relieved from having to record such shameful occurrences. It is
Speaker 1: not your fault. You are ill, and the name of
Speaker 1: your illness is fancy. It is a worm that gnaws
Speaker 1: black wrinkles on one's forehead. It is a fever that
Speaker 1: drives one to run farther and farther, albeit farther may
Speaker 1: begin where happiness ends. It is the last barricade on
Speaker 1: our road to happiness. Rejoice, this barricade has been blasted.
Speaker 1: At last. The road is open. The latest discovery of
Speaker 1: our state science is that there is a center for fancy,
Speaker 1: a miserable, little nervous knot in the lower region of
Speaker 1: the frontal lobe of the brain. A triple treatment of
Speaker 1: this knot with X rays will cure you of fancy.
Speaker 1: Forever you are perfect, you are mechanized. The road to
Speaker 1: one hundred percent happiness is open. Hastened, then, all of you,
Speaker 1: young and old, hasten to undergo the great operation. Hasten
Speaker 1: to the auditoriums where the great operation is being performed.
Speaker 1: Long live the Great Operation, Long live the United State,
Speaker 1: Long live the well doer. You Had you read all
Speaker 1: this not in my records, which look like an ancient,
Speaker 1: strange novel. Had you, like me, held in your trembling
Speaker 1: hands the newspaper, smelling of typographic ink. If you knew
Speaker 1: as I do, that all this is most certain reality,
Speaker 1: If not the reality of today, then that of tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Would you not feel the very things I feel? Would
Speaker 1: not your head whirl as mine does? Would there not
Speaker 1: run over your back and arms those strange, sweet icy needles.
Speaker 1: Would you not feel that you were a giant an atlas,
Speaker 1: that if only you stood up and straightened out, you
Speaker 1: would reach the ceiling with your head. I snatched the
Speaker 1: telephone receiver, Hi three thirty, Yes, yes, yes, three thirty,
Speaker 1: And then, swallowing my own words, I shouted, are you
Speaker 1: at home? Yes? Have you read your reading now? Is
Speaker 1: it not? Is it not stupendous? Yes? A long dark silence.
Speaker 1: The wires buzzed, almost imperceptibly. She was thinking, I must
Speaker 1: see you today without fail, Yes, in my room, after
Speaker 1: sixteen without fail. Dear, she is such a deer without fail.
Speaker 1: I was smiling, and I could not stop. I felt
Speaker 1: I should carry that smile with me into the street
Speaker 1: like a light above my head. Outside, the wind ran
Speaker 1: over me, whirling, whistling, whipping, But I felt even more cheerful.
Speaker 1: All right, go on, go on, moaning and groaning. The
Speaker 1: walls cannot be torn down. Flying leaden clouds broke over
Speaker 1: my head. Well let them. They could not eclipse the sun.
Speaker 1: We chained it to the zenith, like so many Joshua's
Speaker 1: son of nuns. At the corner, a group of Joshua's
Speaker 1: son of Nuns were standing with the foreheads pasted to
Speaker 1: the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table,
Speaker 1: already a number lay. One could see two naked souls
Speaker 1: diverging from under the sheet in a yellow angle, white
Speaker 1: medecks bent over his head, a white hand, a stretched
Speaker 1: out hand holding a syringe filled with something. And you,
Speaker 1: what are you waiting for? I asked, nobody in particular,
Speaker 1: or rather all of them, and you, someone's round head
Speaker 1: turned to me. I oh, afterwards, I must first somewhat confused,
Speaker 1: I left the place I really had to see I
Speaker 1: three thirty first, But why first? I could not explain myself.
Speaker 1: The docks, the integral bluish like ice was glistening and sparkling.
Speaker 1: The engine was caressingly grumbling, repeating some one word as
Speaker 1: if it were my word, a familiar one. I bent
Speaker 1: down and stroked the long cold tube of the motor. Dear,
Speaker 1: what a deer tube. Tomorrow it will come to life
Speaker 1: tomorrow for the first time. It will tremble with burning,
Speaker 1: flaming streams in its boughs. With what eyes would I
Speaker 1: have looked at the glass monster had everything remained as
Speaker 1: it was yesterday. If I knew that tomorrow at twelve,
Speaker 1: I should betray it. Yes, betray Someone behind cautiously touched
Speaker 1: my elbow. I turned around the plate like flat face
Speaker 1: of the second builder. Do you know already? He asked?
Speaker 1: What about the operation? Yes? How everything everything suddenly? No,
Speaker 1: not that the trial flight is put off until day
Speaker 1: after tomorrow on account of that operation. They rushed us
Speaker 1: for nothing we heard on account of the operation, honey,
Speaker 1: limited man. He could see no further than his own platter.
Speaker 1: If only he knew that but for the operation tomorrow
Speaker 1: at twelve, he would be locked up in a glass cage,
Speaker 1: would be tossing about, trying to climb the walls. At
Speaker 1: twelve thirty, when I came into my room. I saw you.
Speaker 1: She was sitting at my table, firm, straight, bone like,
Speaker 1: resting her right cheek on her hand. She must have
Speaker 1: waited for a long time, because when she brusquely rose
Speaker 1: to meet me, there remained on her cheek five white
Speaker 1: imprints of her fingers. For a second, that terrible morning
Speaker 1: came back to me. She beside, I three thirty indignant,
Speaker 1: But for a second only all was at once washed
Speaker 1: off by the sun of today, as it happened sometime
Speaker 1: when you enter your room on a bright day and
Speaker 1: absent mindedly turn on the light. The bulb shines, but
Speaker 1: it is out of place, droll, unnecessary. Without hesitation, I
Speaker 1: held up my hand to her. I forgave her everything.
Speaker 1: She firmly grasped both my hands and pressed them till
Speaker 1: they hurt. Her cheeks, quivering and hanging down like ancient
Speaker 1: precious ornaments, she said with emotion, I was waiting. I
Speaker 1: want only one moment. I only wanted to say how happy,
Speaker 1: how joyous I am for you. You realize, of course,
Speaker 1: that tomorrow or day after tomorrow, you will be healthy again,
Speaker 1: as if born anew. I noticed my papers on the table,
Speaker 1: the last two pages of my record of yesterday. They
Speaker 1: were in the place where I left them the night before.
Speaker 1: If only she knew what I wrote there, although I
Speaker 1: did not care. After all, now it was only history.
Speaker 1: It was the ridiculously far off distance, like an image
Speaker 1: through reversed opera glass. Yes, I said, a while ago,
Speaker 1: while passing through the avenue, I saw a man walking
Speaker 1: ahead of me, his shadow stretched along the pavement. And
Speaker 1: think of it, His shadow was luminous. I think more
Speaker 1: than that. I am absolutely certain that tomorrow all shadows
Speaker 1: will disappear, not a shadow from any person or anything.
Speaker 1: The sun will be shining through everything. She gently and earnestly.
Speaker 1: You are a dreamer. I should not allow my children
Speaker 1: in school to talk that way. She told me something
Speaker 1: about the children, that they were all led in one
Speaker 1: herd to the operation, that it was necessary to bind
Speaker 1: them afterwards with rope, and that one must love pitilessly, yes, pitilessly,
Speaker 1: and that she thought she might finally decide to She
Speaker 1: smoothed out the grayish blue fold of the unif that
Speaker 1: fell between her knees, swiftly pasted her smile all over me,
Speaker 1: and went out. Fortunately, the sun did not stop today.
Speaker 1: The sun was running. It was already sixteen o'clock. I
Speaker 1: was knocking at the door. My heart was knocking. Come in.
Speaker 1: I threw myself upon the floor near her chair, to
Speaker 1: embrace her limbs, to lift my head upward, and look
Speaker 1: into her eyes, first into one and then into the other,
Speaker 1: and in each of them, to see the reflection of
Speaker 1: myself in wonderful captivity. There beyond the wall that looked stormy,
Speaker 1: there the clouds were let in, let them be. My
Speaker 1: head was overcrowded with impetuous words, and I was speaking aloud,
Speaker 1: and flying with the sun. I knew not where, No,
Speaker 1: now we know where we are flying. Planets were following me,
Speaker 1: planets sparking with flame and populated with fiery, singing flowers,
Speaker 1: and mute planets, blue ones where rational stones were unified
Speaker 1: into one organized society, and planets which like our own Earth,
Speaker 1: had reached already the apex of one hundred percent happiness.
Speaker 1: Suddenly from above, And don't you think that at the
Speaker 1: apex are precisely stones unified into an organized society. The
Speaker 1: triangle grew sharper and sharper, darker and darker happiness. Well,
Speaker 1: desires are tortures, are they not? It is clear therefore,
Speaker 1: that happiness is where there are no longer any desires,
Speaker 1: not a single desire anymore. What an error, What an
Speaker 1: absurd prejudice? It was that formerly we would mark happiness
Speaker 1: with the sign plus. No, absolute happiness must be marked
Speaker 1: minus divine minus. I remember, I stammered, unintelligibly, absolute zero
Speaker 1: minus two hundred and seventy three degrees centigrade minus two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy three degrees exactly, a somewhat cool temperature.
Speaker 1: But does it not prove that we are at the
Speaker 1: summit as before? She seemed somehow to speak for me
Speaker 1: and through me, developing to the end my own thoughts.
Speaker 1: But there was something so morbid in her tone that
Speaker 1: I could not refrain. With an effort. I drought a no. No,
Speaker 1: I said you you are mocking. She burst out, laughing loudly,
Speaker 1: too loudly, swiftly. In a second she laughed herself to
Speaker 1: some unseen edge, stumbled and fell over silence. She stood up,
Speaker 1: put her hands upon my shoulders, and looked at to
Speaker 1: me for a long while. Then she pulled me toward her,
Speaker 1: and everything seemed to have disappeared save her sharp, hot lips. Goodbye.
Speaker 1: The words came from afar, from above and reached me,
Speaker 1: not at once, only after a minute, perhaps two minutes later.
Speaker 1: Why why goodbye? You have been ill? Have you not
Speaker 1: because of me? You have committed crimes? Has not all
Speaker 1: this tormented you? And now you have the operation to
Speaker 1: look forward to. You will be cured of me? And
Speaker 1: that means goodbye? No, I cried, a pitilessly sharp black
Speaker 1: triangle in a white background. What do you mean that
Speaker 1: you don't want happiness? My head was breaking into pieces.
Speaker 1: Two logical trains collided and crawled upon each other, rattling
Speaker 1: and smothering. Well, I am waiting. You must choose the
Speaker 1: operation and one hundred percent happiness, or I cannot without you.
Speaker 1: I must not without you, I said, Or perhaps I
Speaker 1: only thought. I am not sure which, but I three
Speaker 1: thirty heard. Yes, I know, she said, then, her hands
Speaker 1: still on my shoulders and her eyes not letting mine go.
Speaker 1: Then until tomorrow, tomorrow at twelve you remember, No, it
Speaker 1: was postponed for a day day after tomorrow, So much
Speaker 1: the better for us. At twelve, day after tomorrow, I
Speaker 1: walked alone in the dusky street. The wind was whirling, carrying,
Speaker 1: driving me like a piece of paper. Fragments of the
Speaker 1: leaden sky were soaring, soaring, they had to soar through
Speaker 1: the infinite for another day or two. Unifs of numbers
Speaker 1: were brushing my sides, yet I was walking alone. It
Speaker 1: was clear to me that all were saved, but that
Speaker 1: there was no salvation for me, or I do not
Speaker 1: want salvation. End of Section fifteen.