Leaning over, she walked away.... Then as if she remembered something, she turned around and cried:
“I shall die; be it so! And it is none of your business ... what do you care?”
Silence. From above pieces of blue towers and walls were falling downward with terrific speed ... they will have perhaps hours or days to fly through the infinite.... Unseen threads were slowly floating through the air, planting themselves upon my face, and it was impossible to brush them off, impossible to rid myself of them.
I walked slowly toward the Ancient House and in my heart I felt that absurd, tormenting compression....
RECORD THIRTY
The Last Number
Galileo’s Mistake
Would It Not Be Better?
Here is my conversation with I-330, which took place in the Ancient House yesterday in the midst of loud noise, among colors which stifled the logical course of my thoughts, red, green, bronze, saffron-yellow, orange colors.... And all the while under the motionless marble smile of that snub-nosed ancient poet.
I shall reproduce the conversation word by word, for it seems to me that it may have an enormous and decisive importance for the fate of the United State,—more than that, for the fate of the universe. Besides, reading it, you my unknown readers, may find some justification for me. I-330, without preliminaries, at once threw everything upon my head:
“I know that the day after tomorrow the first trial trip of the Integral is to take place. On that day we shall take possession of it.”
“What! Day after tomorrow?”