Speaker 1: Section twelve of WE featuring records twenty four and twenty five.
Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. We by Yevgenizamitten, translated by Gregory Zilberg,
Speaker 1: Record twenty four. The limit of the function easter to
Speaker 1: cross out everything. I am like a motor set in
Speaker 1: motion at a speed of too many revolutions per second.
Speaker 1: The bearings have become too hot, and in one more
Speaker 1: minute the molten metal will begin to drip, and everything
Speaker 1: will go to the devil cold water quick some logic,
Speaker 1: I pour pails full of it, But my logic merely
Speaker 1: sizzles on the hot metal and disappears in the air
Speaker 1: in the form of vapor. Of course, it is clear
Speaker 1: that in order to establish the true meaning of a function,
Speaker 1: one must establish its limit. It is also clear than
Speaker 1: yesterday's solution in the universe taken to its limit, is death,
Speaker 1: For death is exactly the most complete dissolution of the
Speaker 1: self in the universe. Hence L equals function of d.
Speaker 1: Love is the function of death, Yes, exactly exactly. That
Speaker 1: is why I am afraid of I three thirty. I
Speaker 1: struggle against her. I don't want But why is it
Speaker 1: that within me I don't want to and I want
Speaker 1: to stand side by side? That is the chief horror
Speaker 1: of the matter. I continue to long for that happy
Speaker 1: death of yesterday. The horror of it is that, even now,
Speaker 1: when I have integrated the logical function, when it becomes
Speaker 1: evident that the latter contains death hidden in it, nevertheless
Speaker 1: I long for it with my lips, arms, breast, with
Speaker 1: every millimeter. Tomorrow is the day of unanimity. She will
Speaker 1: certainly be there, and I shall see her, though from
Speaker 1: a distance. That distance will be painful to me, for
Speaker 1: I must be. I am inevitably drawn close to her,
Speaker 1: so that her hands, her shoulder, her hair. I long
Speaker 1: for even that pain. Let it come great, Well, doer,
Speaker 1: how absurd to desire pain? Who is ignorant of the
Speaker 1: simple fact that pains are negative items which reduce that
Speaker 1: sum total we call happiness consequently well no, consequently, emptiness nakedness.
Speaker 1: The same evening, through the glass wall of the house,
Speaker 1: I see a disquieting, windy, feverishly pink sunset. I move
Speaker 1: my armchair to avoid that pinkness, and turn over these pages,
Speaker 1: and I find I am forgetting that I write this
Speaker 1: not for myself, but for you, unknown people, whom I
Speaker 1: love and pity, for you who still lag centuries behind below.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you about the Day of Unanimity, About
Speaker 1: that great day. I think that day for us is
Speaker 1: what Easter was for the ancients. I remember I used
Speaker 1: to prepare an hour calendar the eve of that day.
Speaker 1: Solemnly I would cross out every time the figure of
Speaker 1: the hour elapsed nearer by one hour, one hour less
Speaker 1: to wait. If I were certain that nobody would discover it,
Speaker 1: I assure you I should now too, make out such
Speaker 1: a calendar and carry it with me, and I should
Speaker 1: watch how many hours remain until tomorrow, when I shall see,
Speaker 1: at least from a distance. I was interrupted. They brought
Speaker 1: me a new Unif from the shop. As is customary,
Speaker 1: new Unifs are given to us for tomorrow's celebration. Steps
Speaker 1: in the hall, exclamations of joy, noises. I shall continue. Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I shall see the same spectacle which we see year
Speaker 1: after year, and which always awakes us in fresh emotions,
Speaker 1: as though we saw it for the first time. An
Speaker 1: impressive throng of piously lifted arms. Tomorrow is the day
Speaker 1: of the yearly election of the well doer. Tomorrow we
Speaker 1: shall again hand over to our well doer the keys
Speaker 1: to them pregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly, this in
Speaker 1: no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election days of the ancients,
Speaker 1: on which it seems so funny. They did not even
Speaker 1: know and advance the result of the election to build
Speaker 1: a state on some non discountable contingencies, to build blindly
Speaker 1: what could be more nonsensical. Yet centuries were required to
Speaker 1: pass before this was understood. Needless to say, we, in
Speaker 1: this respect, as in all others, have no place for contingencies.
Speaker 1: Nothing unexpected can happen. The elections themselves have rather a
Speaker 1: symbolic meeting. They remind us that we are a united,
Speaker 1: powerful organism of millions of cells, that, to use the
Speaker 1: language of the Gospel of the Ancients, we are a
Speaker 1: united church. The history of the United States know as
Speaker 1: not a single case in which, upon this solemn day
Speaker 1: even a solitary voice has dared to violate the magnificent unison.
Speaker 1: They say that the ancients used to conduct their elections
Speaker 1: secretly stealthily like thebes. Some of our historians assert even
Speaker 1: that they would come to the electoral celebrations completely masked.
Speaker 1: Imagine the weird, fantastic spectacle night a plaza along the walls,
Speaker 1: the stealthily creeping figures covered with mantles, the red flame
Speaker 1: of torches dancing in the wind. Why was such secrecy necessary?
Speaker 1: It has never been satisfactorily explained. Probably it resulted from
Speaker 1: the fact that elections were associated with some mystic and superstitious,
Speaker 1: perhaps even criminal ceremonies. We have nothing to conceal or
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of. We celebrate our elections openly, honestly,
Speaker 1: in daylight. I see them all vote for the well doer,
Speaker 1: and everybody sees me vote for the well doer. How
Speaker 1: could it be otherwise? Since all and I are one?
Speaker 1: We how ennobling, sincere lofty? Is this compared with the cowardly,
Speaker 1: thievish secrecy of the ancients? Moreover, how much more expedient
Speaker 1: for even admitting for a moment the impossible, that is,
Speaker 1: the outbreak of some dissonance in our customary unity. In
Speaker 1: that case, our unseen guardians are always right there among us.
Speaker 1: Are they not to register the numbers who would fall
Speaker 1: into error, and save them from any further false steps.
Speaker 1: The United State is theirs, the numbers. And besides, through
Speaker 1: the wall to my left a she number Before the
Speaker 1: mirror door of the closet. She is hastily unbuttoning her
Speaker 1: unif for a second, swiftly, eyes, lips too sharp, pink.
Speaker 1: The curtains fell within me instantly awoke all that happened yesterday,
Speaker 1: And now I no longer know what I meant to
Speaker 1: say by Besides, I no longer wish to I cannot.
Speaker 1: I want one thing. I want I three thirty. I
Speaker 1: want her every minute, every second, to be with me,
Speaker 1: with no one else. All that I wrote about unanimity
Speaker 1: is of no value. It is not what I want.
Speaker 1: I have a desire to cross it out, to tear
Speaker 1: it to pieces, and throw it away, for I know
Speaker 1: be it a sacrilege. Yet it is the truth that
Speaker 1: a glorious day is possible only with her, and only then,
Speaker 1: when we are side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Without her,
Speaker 1: the sun of tomorrow will appear to me only as
Speaker 1: a little circle cut out of a tin sheet, and
Speaker 1: the sky a sheet of tin painted blue, And I myself,
Speaker 1: I snatched the telephone receiver. I three thirty, are you there, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is I. Why so late? Perhaps not too late yet?
Speaker 1: I want to ask you. I want you to be
Speaker 1: with me tomorrow. Dear, dear, I said in a very
Speaker 1: low voice. And for some reason a thing I saw
Speaker 1: this morning at the docks flashed through my mind. Just
Speaker 1: for fun, someone put a watch under the hundred ton
Speaker 1: sledge hammer. A swing, a breath of wind in the face,
Speaker 1: and the silent one hundred ton knife like weight on
Speaker 1: the breakable watch. A silence, I thought. I heard someone
Speaker 1: whisper in I three thirty's room, then her voice. No,
Speaker 1: I cannot, of course, you understand that I myself. No,
Speaker 1: I cannot why you shall see tomorrow night, Record twenty
Speaker 1: five The Descent from Heaven, the greatest catastrophe in history.
Speaker 1: The known is ended at the beginning, all arose, and
Speaker 1: the hymn, like a solemn mantle, slowly waved above our heads,
Speaker 1: hundreds of tubes of the musical tower and millions of
Speaker 1: human voices. For a second, I forgot everything. I forgot
Speaker 1: that alarming something at which I three thirty hinted in
Speaker 1: connection with today's celebration, I think I even forgot about her.
Speaker 1: At that moment, I was the very same little boy
Speaker 1: who once wept because of a tiny ink stain on
Speaker 1: his unif which no one else could see. Even if
Speaker 1: it be so, If nobody but he sees that I
Speaker 1: am covered with black, ineffaceable stains, I know it, do
Speaker 1: I not? I know that there should be no place
Speaker 1: for a criminal like me among these frank, open faces.
Speaker 1: What if I should rush forward and shout out all
Speaker 1: at once everything about myself, the end might follow. Let it,
Speaker 1: at least for a second, I would feel myself clear
Speaker 1: and clean and senseless. Like that innocent blue sky. All
Speaker 1: eyes were directed upward in the pure morning, blue, still
Speaker 1: moist with the tears of night. A small dark spot appeared.
Speaker 1: Now it was dark, now bathed in the rays of
Speaker 1: the sun. It was He descending to us from the sky.
Speaker 1: He the new Jehovah in an arrow, he as wise
Speaker 1: and as lovingly cruel as the Jehovah of the ancients.
Speaker 1: Nearer and nearer and higher toward him were drawn millions
Speaker 1: of hearts. Already he saw us, and in my mind
Speaker 1: with him, I looked over everything from the heights, concentric
Speaker 1: circles of stands marked with dotted blue lines of unifs,
Speaker 1: like circles of a spider web, strewn with microscopic suns,
Speaker 1: the shining of the badges, and in the center. There
Speaker 1: Soon the wise white spider would occupy his place, the
Speaker 1: well doer clad in white, the well doer who wisely
Speaker 1: tangled our hands and feet in the salutary net of happiness.
Speaker 1: His magnificent descent from the sky was accomplished. The brassy
Speaker 1: hymn came to silence. All sat down at once. I
Speaker 1: perceived that everything was really a very thin spider web,
Speaker 1: the threads of which were stretched, tense and trembling, and
Speaker 1: it seemed that in a moment those threads might break
Speaker 1: and something improbable. I half rose and looked around, and
Speaker 1: I met many lovingly worried eyes, which passed from one
Speaker 1: face to another. I saw someone lifting his hand and
Speaker 1: almost imperceptibly waving his fingers, making signs to another. The
Speaker 1: latter replied with a similar finger sign, and a third.
Speaker 1: I understood they were the guardians. I understood they were
Speaker 1: alarmed by something. The spider web was stretched and trembling,
Speaker 1: and within me, as if tuned to the same wavelength
Speaker 1: of a radio within me. There was a corresponding quiver.
Speaker 1: On the platform. A poet was reciting his pre electoral ode.
Speaker 1: I could not hear a single word. I only felt
Speaker 1: the rhythmic swing of the hexametric pendulum, and with its
Speaker 1: every motion I felt how nearer and nearer there was
Speaker 1: approaching some hour set for. I continued to turn over
Speaker 1: face after face like pages, but I could not find
Speaker 1: the one, the only one I was seeking, the one
Speaker 1: I needed to find at once, as soon as possible,
Speaker 1: for one more swing of the pendulum. And it was he.
Speaker 1: Certainly it was he below past the main platform, gliding
Speaker 1: over the sparkling glass. The ear wings, flapped by the
Speaker 1: running body, gave a reflection of a double curved s
Speaker 1: like a noose, which was rolling towards some of the
Speaker 1: intricate passages among the stands s. I three thirty. There
Speaker 1: is some thread between them. I've always felt some thread
Speaker 1: between them. I don't know yet what that thread is,
Speaker 1: but someday I shall untangle it. I planted my gaze
Speaker 1: on him. He was rushing further away, behind him that
Speaker 1: invisible thread there he stopped. There, I was pierced, twisted
Speaker 1: together into a knot. As if by a lightning like
Speaker 1: many vaulted electric discharge in my row, not more than
Speaker 1: forty degrees from me, s stopped and bowed. I saw
Speaker 1: I three thirty, and beside her, the smiling repellent negro
Speaker 1: lipped R. Thirteen. My first thought was to rush to
Speaker 1: her and cry, why with him? Why did you not want?
Speaker 1: But the salutary invisible spiderweb bound fast my hands and feet,
Speaker 1: so gritting my teeth together, I sat stiff as iron,
Speaker 1: my gaze fixed upon them, a sharp physical pain at
Speaker 1: my heart. I remember my thought, if non physical causes
Speaker 1: affect physical pain, then it is clear that I regret
Speaker 1: that I did not come to any conclusion. I remember
Speaker 1: only that something about soul flashed through my mind, a
Speaker 1: purely nonsensical ancient expression. His soul fell into his boots,
Speaker 1: passed through my head. My heart sank. The hexameter came
Speaker 1: to an end. It was about to start. What it
Speaker 1: the five minute pre election recess established by custom. The
Speaker 1: custom established pre electional silence. But now it was not
Speaker 1: that pious, really prayer like silence that it usually was.
Speaker 1: Now it was as in the ancient days, when there
Speaker 1: were no accumulating towers when the sky, still untamed in
Speaker 1: those days, would roar from time to time with its storms.
Speaker 1: It was like the lull before the storm of the
Speaker 1: ancient days. The air seemed to be made of transparent,
Speaker 1: vaporized cast iron. One wanted to breathe with one's mouth
Speaker 1: wide open, My hearing intense to painfulness registered from behind
Speaker 1: a mouselike, gnawing, worried whisper. Without lifting my eyes, I
Speaker 1: saw those two I, three thirty, and are thirteen, side
Speaker 1: by side, shoulder to shoulder, and on my knees, my trembling, foreign, hateful,
Speaker 1: hairy hands. Everybody was holding a badge with a clock
Speaker 1: in his hands. One two, three, five minutes from the
Speaker 1: main platform, a cast iron slow voice. Those in favor
Speaker 1: shall lift their hands, if only I dared look straight
Speaker 1: into his eyes as formerly straight and devotedly, and think,
Speaker 1: here I am, my whole self. Take me. But now
Speaker 1: I did not dare. I had to make an effort
Speaker 1: to raise my hand, as if my joints were rusty,
Speaker 1: A whisper of millions of hands. Someone subdued ah, and
Speaker 1: I felt something was coming, falling heavily, but I could
Speaker 1: not understand what it was, and I did not have
Speaker 1: the strength or courage to take a look those opposed.
Speaker 1: This was always the most magnificent moment of our celebration.
Speaker 1: All would remain sitting motionless, joyfully bowing their heads under
Speaker 1: the salutary yoke of that number of numbers. But now,
Speaker 1: to my horror again, I heard a rustle light as
Speaker 1: a sigh. Yet it was more distinct even than the
Speaker 1: brass tube of the hymn. Thus the last sigh in
Speaker 1: a man's life. Around him, people with their faces pale
Speaker 1: and with drops of cold sweat upon their forehead. I
Speaker 1: lifted my eyes, and it took one hundredth of a second.
Speaker 1: Only I saw thousands of hands arise, opposed and fall back.
Speaker 1: I saw the pale, cross marked face of I three thirty,
Speaker 1: and her lifted hand. Darkness came upon my eyes another
Speaker 1: hundredth of a second. Silence, quiet the pulse, then, as
Speaker 1: if at the sign of some mad conductor, from all
Speaker 1: the stands rattling, shouting, a whirlwind of unifs, lifted by
Speaker 1: the rush, the perplexed figures of the guardians running to
Speaker 1: and fro some one's heels in the air near my eyes,
Speaker 1: and close to those heels someone's wide open mouth, tearing
Speaker 1: itself by an inaudible stream. For some reason, this picture
Speaker 1: remains particularly distinct in my memory. Thousands of mouths, noiselessly yelling,
Speaker 1: as if on the screen of a monstrous cinema, also
Speaker 1: as if on a screen somewhere below at a distance.
Speaker 1: For a second, ninety pressed against the wall in a passage,
Speaker 1: her lips white, defending her abdomen with crossed arms, she disappeared,
Speaker 1: as if washed away by a wave or else. I
Speaker 1: simply forgot her, because this was not on the screen anymore,
Speaker 1: but within me, within my compressed heart, within the rapidly
Speaker 1: pulsating temples over my head. Somewhat to the left, AR
Speaker 1: thirteen suddenly jumped upon a bench, all sprinkling red, rabid,
Speaker 1: and his arms was I three thirty, pale, her unuf
Speaker 1: torn from shoulder to breast, red, blood on white. She
Speaker 1: firmly held him round the neck, and he, with huge
Speaker 1: leaps from bench to bench, repellent and agile, like a gorilla,
Speaker 1: was carrying her upward, as if it were in a
Speaker 1: fire of ancient days. Everything became red around me, only
Speaker 1: one thing in my head to jump after them, to
Speaker 1: catch them. At this moment, I cannot explain to myself
Speaker 1: the source of that strength within me. But like a
Speaker 1: battering ram, I broke through the crowd, over somebody's shoulder,
Speaker 1: over a bench, and I was there in a moment
Speaker 1: and caught Arthur teen by the collar. Don't you dare?
Speaker 1: Don't you dare? I say immediately. Fortunately no one could
Speaker 1: hear my voice as everyone was shouting and running. Who
Speaker 1: is it? What's the matter? What? Arthur Teene turned around.
Speaker 1: His sprinkling lips were trembling. He apparently thought it was
Speaker 1: one of the guardians. What I don't want, I won't
Speaker 1: allow put her down at once, But he only sprinkled
Speaker 1: angrily with his lips, shook his head, and ran on.
Speaker 1: Then I am terribly ashamed to write all this down,
Speaker 1: but I believe I must so that you, my unknown readers,
Speaker 1: may make a complete study of my disease. Then I
Speaker 1: hit him over the head with all my might. You
Speaker 1: understand I hit him, This I remember distinctly. I also
Speaker 1: remember a feeling of liberation that followed my action, a
Speaker 1: feeling of lightness in my whole body. I three p
Speaker 1: thirty slid quickly out of his arms. Go away, she
Speaker 1: shouted to ar don't you see that he go? Arthur
Speaker 1: teen showed his way, negro teeth sprinkled into my face.
Speaker 1: Some word dived down and disappeared, And I picked up
Speaker 1: by three thirty, pressed her firmly to myself, and carried
Speaker 1: her away. My heart was beating forcibly. It seemed enormous,
Speaker 1: and with every beat it would splash out such a thundering,
Speaker 1: such a hot such a joyful wave, a flash. Let
Speaker 1: them below there, let them toss and rush and yell
Speaker 1: and fall. What matter if something has fallen, if something
Speaker 1: has been shattered to dust, Little matter? Only to remain
Speaker 1: this way and carry her, carry and carry the same
Speaker 1: Evening twenty two o'clock I hold my pen with great difficulty,
Speaker 1: such an extraordinary fatigue, after all the dizzying events of
Speaker 1: this morning. Is it possible that the strong, salutary, centuries
Speaker 1: old walls of the United States have fallen? Is it
Speaker 1: possible that we are again without a roof over our heads,
Speaker 1: back in the wild state of freedom like our remote ancestors.
Speaker 1: Is it possible that we have lost our well doer
Speaker 1: opposed on the day of unanimity? Opposed? I am ashamed
Speaker 1: of them, painfully, fearfully ashamed. But who were they? And
Speaker 1: who am I? They? We do I know? I shall continue.
Speaker 1: She was sitting where I had brought her, on the
Speaker 1: uppermost glass bench, which was hot from the sun. Her
Speaker 1: right shoulder, in the beginning of the wonderful and incalculable curve,
Speaker 1: were uncovered an exceedingly thin serpent of blood. She seemed
Speaker 1: not to be aware of the blood, or that her
Speaker 1: breast was uncovered. No, I will say. Rather, she seemed
Speaker 1: to see all that, and seemed to feel that it
Speaker 1: was essential to her that if her unuf were unbuttoned,
Speaker 1: she would have torn it. She would have and tomorrow,
Speaker 1: she breathed the words through sparkling, white clenched teeth, tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows. What do you understand? Neither I nor anyone
Speaker 1: else knows. It is unknown. Do you realize what a
Speaker 1: joy it is? Do you realize that all that was
Speaker 1: certain has come to an end? Now things will be new, improbable, unforeseen.
Speaker 1: Below the human waves were still foaming, tossing, roaring, But
Speaker 1: they seemed to be very far away, and to be
Speaker 1: growing more and more distant, For she was looking at me.
Speaker 1: She slowly drew me into herself through the narrow golden
Speaker 1: windows of her pupils. We thus remained silent for a
Speaker 1: long while, and for some reason I recalled how once
Speaker 1: I watched some queer yellow pupils through the green wall,
Speaker 1: while above the wall birds were soaring. Or was this
Speaker 1: another time? Listen? If nothing particular happens tomorrow, I shall
Speaker 1: take you there. Do you understand? No? I did not understand,
Speaker 1: but I nodded in silence. I was dissolved. I became infinitesimal,
Speaker 1: a geometrical point. After all, there is some logic, a
Speaker 1: peculiar logic of today. In this state of being a point,
Speaker 1: A point has more unknowns than any other entity. If
Speaker 1: a point should start to move and might become thousands
Speaker 1: of curves or hundreds of solids, I was afraid to
Speaker 1: budge what might I have become if I had moved.
Speaker 1: It seemed to me that everybody, like myself, was afraid
Speaker 1: now of even the most minute of motions. At this moment.
Speaker 1: For instance, as I sit and write, everyone is sitting
Speaker 1: hidden in his glass cell expecting something. I do not
Speaker 1: hear the buzzing of the elevators usual at this hour,
Speaker 1: or to laughter or steps. From time to time, no
Speaker 1: numbers pass in couples through the hall, whispering on tiptoe,
Speaker 1: what will happen tomorrow? What will become of me tomorrow?
Speaker 1: End of Section twelve.