Suddenly one of those hands rose slowly. A slow cast-iron gesture; obeying the will of the lifted hand, a Number came out on the platform. It was one of the State poets, whose fortunate lot it was to crown our celebration with his verses.
Divine iambic brass verses thundered over the many stands. They dealt with the man, who, his reason lost and lips like glass, stood on the steps and waited for the logical consequences of his own insane deeds.
... A blaze.... Buildings were swaying in those iambic lines, and sprinkling upward their liquified golden substance, they broke and fell. The green trees were scorched, their sap slowly ran out and they remained standing like black crosses, like skeletons. Then appeared Prometheus (that meant us).
“... he harnessed fire
With machines and steel
And fettered chaos with Law....”
The world was renovated; it became like steel,—a sun of steel, trees of steel, men of steel. Suddenly an insane man, “Unchained the fire and set it free,” and again the world had perished.... Unfortunately I have a bad memory for poetry, but one thing I am sure of: one could not choose more instructive or more beautiful parables.
Another slow, heavy gesture of the cast-iron
hand and another poet appeared on the steps of the Cube. I stood up! Impossible! But ... thick negro lips,—it was he. Why did he not tell me that he was to be invested with such high.... His lips trembled; they were gray. Oh, I certainly understood; to be face to face with the Well-Doer, face to face with the hosts of Guardians! Yet one should not allow oneself to be so upset.
Swift sharp verses like an axe.... They told about an unheard-of crime, about sacrilegious poems in which the Well-Doer was called.... But no, I do not dare to repeat....
R-13 was pale when he finished, and looking at no one (I did not expect such bashfulness of him) he descended and sat down. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second I saw right beside him somebody’s face—a sharp, black triangle—and instantly I lost it; my eyes, thousands of eyes, were directed upward toward the Machine. Then—again the superhuman, cast-iron, gesture of the hand.
Swayed by an unknown wind the criminal moved; one step ... one more, ... then the last step in his life. His face was turned to the sky, his head thrown backward—he was on his last.— ... Heavy, stony like fate, the Well-Doer went around the machine, put his enormous hand on the lever.... Not a whisper, not a breath around; all eyes were upon that hand.... What crushing, scorching power one must feel to be the