“Think of it! For the first time in life to find myself outside the limits of our city and see—who knows what is beyond the Green Wall?”
O-90 looked at me extremely surprised, her blue eyes trying to penetrate mine; she looked at my senselessly swinging arms. But I did not let her say a word,—I kept talking, talking.... And within me, apart from what I was saying and audible only to myself a thought was feverishly buzzing and knocking. “Impossible! You must
somehow ... you must not lead him to I-330!”
Instead of turning to the right I turned to the left. The bridge submissively bent its back in a slavish way to all three of us, to me, to O-, to him behind. Lights were falling from the houses across the water, falling and breaking into thousands of sparks which danced feverishly, sprayed with the mad white foam of the water. The wind was moaning like a tensely stretched string of a double-basso somewhere not far away. Through this basso, behind, all the while....
The house where I live. At the entrance O- stopped and began:
“No! You promised, did you not, that....”
I did not let her finish. Hastily I pushed her through the entrance and we found ourselves in the lobby. At the controller’s desk—the familiar, hanging, excitedly quivering cheeks, a group of Numbers around. They were quarreling about something, heads bending over the banisters on the second floor; they were running downstairs one by one. But about that later. I at once drew O-90 into the opposite, unoccupied corner and sat down with my back to the wall. I saw a dark large-headed shadow gliding back and forth over the sidewalk. I took out my notebook. O-90 in her chair was slowly sinking as if she were evaporating from under her unif, as if her body were thawing, as if only her empty unif were left, and empty eyes taking one into the blue emptiness. In a tired voice:
“Why did you bring me here? You lied to me?”
“No, not so loud! Look here! Do you see? Through the wall?”
“Yes, I see a shadow.”