“Yes. They are in the house by this time. They’ll soon be here. Quick, quick!”
“Nonsense, we have time!” I-330 was laughing, cheerful sparks in her eyes. It was either absurd, senseless courage, or else there was something I did not yet understand.
“I-, dear, for the sake of the Well-Doer! You must understand that this....”
“For the sake of the Well-Doer!” The sharp, triangle-smile.
“Well ... well, for my sake, I implore you!”
“Oh, yes, I wanted to talk to you about some other matters.... Well, never mind.... We’ll talk about them tomorrow.”
And cheerfully (yes cheerfully) she nodded to me; the other came out for a second from under his forehead’s awning and nodded also. I was alone.
Quick! To my desk! I opened this manuscript, took the pen so that they should find me at this work which is for the benefit of the United State. Suddenly I felt every hair on my head living, separated, moving: “What if they should read, even one page of these most recently written?”
Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing together. “To hide
them! But where?” Glass all around. “To burn them?” But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self....