Then stumbling, muttering, I told him everything that is recorded in these pages.... About my real self, and about my hairy self, and about
my hands ... yes ... exactly that was the beginning. And how I would not do my duty then, and how I lied to myself, and how she obtained false certificates for me, and how I grew worse and worse, every day, and about the long corridors underground, and there beyond the Wall....
All this I threw out in formless pieces and lumps. I would stutter and fail to find words. The lips double-curved in a smile would prompt me with the word I needed and I would nod gratefully: “Yes, yes!”.... Suddenly, what was it? He was talking for me and I only listened and nodded: “Yes, yes,” and then, “Yes, exactly so, ... yes, yes....”
I felt cold around my mouth as though it were wet with ether, and I asked with difficulty:
“But how is it.... You could not learn anywhere....”
He smiled a smile growing more and more curved; then:
“But I see that you do want to conceal from me something. For example, you enumerated everything you saw beyond the Wall but you failed to mention one thing. You deny it? But don’t you remember that once, just in passing, just for a second you saw me there? Yes, yes me!”
Silence.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, it became shamelessly clear to me: he—he too—. And all
myself, my torment, all that I brought here, crushed by the burden, plucking up my last strength as if performing a great feat, all appeared to me only funny,—like the ancient anecdote about Abraham and Isaac; Abraham all in a cold sweat, with the knife already raised over his son, over himself—and suddenly a voice from above: “Never mind.... I was only joking.”