As if she had not heard at all, she poured some of the green liquid from the bottle into a small glass and sipped it.
“Wonderful liqueur! Want some?”
Then I understood; alcohol! Like lightning there came to memory what I saw yesterday: the stony hand of the Well-Doer, the unbearable blade of the electric ray; there on the Cube, the head thrown backward, the stretched-out body! I shivered.
“Please listen,” I said, “You know, do you not, that any one who poisons himself with nicotine, more particularly with alcohol, is severely treated by the United State?”
Dark brows raised high to the temples, the sharp mocking triangle.
“‘It is more reasonable to annihilate a few than to allow many to poison themselves.... And degeneration,’ ... etc.... This is true to the point of indecency.”
“Indecency?”
“Yes. To let out into the street such a group of bald-headed naked little truths. Only imagine please. Imagine, say, that persistent admirer of mine, S-, well, you know him. Then imagine: if he should discard the deception of clothes and appear in public in his true form ... oh!” She laughed. But I clearly saw her lower, sorrowful triangle; two deep grooves from the nose to the mouth. And for some reason these grooves made me think: that double-curved being, half-hunched, with wing-like ears,—he embraced her? her, such ... Oh!
Naturally, I try now merely to express my
abnormal feelings of that moment. Now, as I write, I understand perfectly that all this is as it should be; that he, S-4711, like any other honest Number has a perfect right to the joys of life and that it would be unjust.... But I think the point is quite clear.