Now that square-root of minus one is here again. I read over what I have written and I clearly see that I was insincere with myself, that
I lied to myself in order to avoid seeing that square-root of minus one. My sickness, etc., is all nonsense; I could go there. I feel sure that if such a thing had happened a week ago I should have gone without hesitating. Why then am I unable to go now?... Why?
Today, for instance, at exactly sixteen-ten I stood before the glittering Glass Wall. Above was the shining, golden, sun-like sign: “Bureau of Guardians.” Inside, a long queue of bluish-gray unifs awaiting their turns, faces shining like the oil lamps in an ancient temple. They came to accomplish a great thing: they came to put on the altar of the United State their beloved ones, their friends, their own selves. My whole being craved to join them, yet ... I could not; my feet were as though melted into the glass plates of the sidewalk. I simply stood there looking foolish.
“Heh, mathematician! Dreaming?”
I shivered. Black eyes varnished with laughter looked at me,—thick negro lips! It was my old friend the poet, R-13, and with him rosy O-. I turned around angrily (I still believe that if they had not appeared I should have entered the Bureau and have torn the square-root of minus one out of my flesh).
“Not dreaming at all; if you will, ‘standing in adoration’,” I retorted quite brusquely.
“Oh, certainly, certainly! You, my friend, should never have become a mathematician; you should have become a poet, a great poet! Yes,
come over to our trade, to the poets. Heh? If you will, I can arrange it in a jiffy. Heh?”
R-13 usually talks very fast: His words run in torrents, his thick lips sprinkle. Every P is a fountain, every “poets” a fountain.
“So far I have served knowledge, and I shall continue to serve knowledge.”