Yes, at twelve!... Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on my face, of something implanted, that could not be brushed off. Suddenly, yesterday morning, and U- and all she shouted into the face of I-330! Why, how absurd!
I hastened to get out of the house and home, home! Somewhere behind me I heard the chattering of birds beyond the Wall. And ahead of me in the setting sun the balls of cupolas made of red, crystallized fire, enormous flaming cubes—houses, and the sharp point of the Accumulating Tower high in the sky like a paralyzed streak of lightning. And all this, all this impeccable, most geometric beauty, shall I, I myself, with my hands...? Is there no way out? No path? No trail?
I passed by an auditorium (I do not recall its number). Inside, the benches were stacked along the walls. In the middle, tables covered with snow-white glass sheets, with pink stains of sunny blood on the white.... There was foreshadowed in all that some unknown and therefore alarming tomorrow. It is unnatural for a thinking and seeing human being to live among irregularities, unknowns, X’s. If suddenly your eyes were covered with a bandage and you were let go to feel around, to stumble, ever aware that somewhere
very close to you there is the border-line, one step only and nothing but a compressed, smothered piece of flesh will be left of you.... I now feel somewhat like that.
... And what if without waiting for anything I should ... just head down.... Would it not be the only right thing to do? To disentangle everything at once?
RECORD THIRTY-ONE
The Great Operation
I Forgave Everything
The Collision of Trains
Saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was nothing to hold to, that it was the end!...
It was as if you already ascended the steps towards the threatening machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy thud already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked at the blue sky to swallow it with your eyes ... when suddenly, it was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall ... what happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in the white pillow!... This is approximately what I felt, when I read the State Journal this morning. It has been all a terrible dream and this dream is over. And I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that I thought of selfish, voluntary death! I am ashamed now to reread the last lines of yesterday. But let them remain as a memory of that incredible might-have-happened, which
will not happen! On the front page of the State Journal the following gleamed: