Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 4. Griffith George Chetwynd
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not there; instead an empty, icy desk with ink-blots. I remembered that today all work was stopped; everybody was to go to be operated upon. Hence there was no need for her to stay here. There was nobody to be registered....
The street. It was windy. The sky seemed to be composed of soaring panels of cast-iron. And exactly as it seemed for one moment yesterday, the whole world was broken up into separate, sharp, independent fragments, and each of these fragments was falling at full speed; each would stop for a second, hang before me in the air and disappear without trace. It was as if the black, precise letters on this page should suddenly move apart and begin to jump hither and thither in fright, so that there was not a word on the page, only nonsensical “ap,” “jum,” “wor.” The crowd seemed just as nonsensical, dispersed (not in rows), going forward, backward, diagonally, transversely....
Then nobody. For a second while I was dashing at full speed, suddenly stopping, I saw on the second floor in the glass cage hanging in the air,—a man and a woman—a kiss; she standing with her whole body bent backward brokenly: “This is for the last time, forever....”
At a corner a thorny, moving bush of heads. Above the heads, separate, floating in the air, a banner: “Down with the machines! Down with the Operation!” And (distinct from my own self) I thought: “Is it possible that each one of us bears such a pain, that it can be removed only with his heart.... That something must be done to each one, before he....” For a second everything disappeared for me from the world, except my beast-like hand with the heavy cast-iron package it held....
A boy appeared. He was running, a shadow under his lower lip. The lower lip turned out like the cuff of a rolled-up sleeve. His face was distorted; he wept loudly; he was running away from somebody. Stamping of feet was heard behind him....
The boy reminded me: “U- must be in school. I must hurry!” I ran to the nearest opening of the Underground Railway. At the entrance someone passed me and said, “Not running. No trains today ... there!” I descended. A sort of general delirium was reigning. The glitter of cut-crystal suns; the platform packed closely with heads. An empty, torpid train.
In the silence—a voice. I could not see her but I knew, I knew that intense, living, flexible, whip-like, flogging voice! I felt there that sharp triangle of brows drawn to the temples....
“Let me! Let me reach her! I must!...”
Someone’s tentacles caught my arm, my shoulders. I was nailed. In the silence I heard:
“No. Go up to them. There they will cure you; there they will overfeed you with that leavened happiness. Satiated, you will slumber peacefully, organized, keeping time and snoring sweetly. Is it possible that you do not yet hear that great symphony of snoring? Foolish people! Don’t you realize that they want to liberate you from these gnawing, worm-like, torturing question marks? And you remain standing here and listening to me? Quick! Up! To the Great Operation! What is your concern, if I remain here alone? What does it matter to you if I want to struggle, hopelessly struggle? So much the better! What does it matter to you that I do not want others to desire for me? I want to desire for myself. If I desire the impossible....”
Another voice, slow, heavy:
“Ah, the impossible! Which means to run after your stupid fancies; those fancies would whirl from under your very noses like a tail. No, we shall catch that tail, and then....”
“And then—swallow it and fall snoring; a new tail will become necessary. They say the ancients had a certain animal which they called ‘Ass.’ In order to make it go forward they would attach a carrot to a bow held in front of its nose, so that it could not reach it.... If it had caught and swallowed it....”
The tentacles suddenly let me go; I threw myself towards the place she was speaking from; but at that very moment everything was brought to confusion. Shouts from behind: “They are coming here! Coming here!” The lights twinkled and went out,—someone cut the cable,—and everything was like a lava of cries, groaning, heads, fingers....
I do not know how long we were rolled about that way in the underground tube. I only remember that steps were felt, dusk appeared, becoming brighter and brighter, and again we were in the street, dispersing fan-wise in different directions.
Again I was alone. Wind. Gray, low twilight crawling over my head. In the damp glass of the sidewalk, somewhere very deep, there were light topsy-turvy walls and figures moving along, feet upward. And that terribly heavy package in my hands pulled me down into that depth to the bottom.
At the desk again. U- was not yet there; her room was dark and empty. I went up to my room and turned on the light. My temples tightly bound by the iron ring were pulsating. I paced and paced, always in the same circle: my table, the white package on the table, the bed, my table, the white package on the table.... In the room to my left the curtains were lowered. To my right: the knotty bald head over a book, the enormous parabolic forehead. Wrinkles on the forehead like a series of yellow, illegible lines. At times our eyes met and then I felt that those lines were about me.
... It happened at twenty-one o’clock exactly. U- came in on her own initiative. I remember that my breathing was so loud that I could hear it and that I wanted to breathe less noisily but was unable to.
She sat down and arranged the fold of her unif on her knees. The pinkish-brown gills were waving.
“Oh, dear, is it true that you are wounded? I just learned about it, and at once I ran....”
The piston was before me on the table. I jumped up, breathing even louder. She heard, and stopped half-way through a word and rose. Already I had located the place on her head; something disgustingly sweet was in my mouth.... My handkerchief! I could not find it. I spat on the floor.
The fellow with the yellow fixed wrinkles which think of me! It was necessary that he should not see. It would be even more disgusting if he could.... I pressed the button. (I had no right to do that, but who cared about rights then?) The curtains fell.
Evidently she felt and understood what was coming for she rushed to the door. But I was quicker than she and I locked the door with the key, breathing loudly and not taking my eyes for a second away from that place on her head....
“You ... you are mad! How dare you....” She moved backward towards the bed, put her trembling hands between her knees.... Like a tense spring, holding her firmly with my gaze, I slowly stretched out my arm towards the table (only one arm could move), and I snatched the piston.
“I implore you! One day—only one day! Tomorrow I shall go and attend to the formalities....”
What was she talking about? I swung my arm.... And I consider I killed her. Yes, you my unknown readers, you have the right to call me murderer. I know that I should have dealt the blow on her head had she not screamed:
“For ... for the sake ... I agree.... I ... one moment....” With trembling hands she tore off her unif;—a large, yellow, drooping body, she fell upon the bed....
Then I understood; she thought that I pulled the curtains ... in order to ... that I wanted....
This was so unexpected and so stupid that I burst out laughing. Immediately the tense spring within me broke and my hand weakened and the piston fell to the floor.
Here I learned from personal experience that laughter is the most terrible of weapons; you can kill anything with laughter, even murder. I sat at my table and laughed desperately; I saw no way out of that absurd situation. I don’t know what would have been the end if things had run their natural course, for suddenly a new factor in the arithmetical chain: the telephone rang.
I hurried, grasped the receiver. Perhaps she ... I heard an unfamiliar voice:
“Wait a minute.”
Annoying, infinite buzzing. Heavy steps from afar, nearer and louder like cast-iron, and....
“D-503? The Well-Doer speaking. Come at once to me.”
Ding! He hung up the receiver. Ding! like a key in a keyhole.