Our famous “Mathematical Norms”! Without them in our schools, how could we love so sincerely and dearly our four rules of arithmetic? And “Thorns!” This is a classical image: the Guardians are thorns about a rose; thorns that guard our tender State-Flower from coarse hands. Whose heart could resist, could remain indifferent to see and hear the lips of our children recite like a prayer: “A bad boy caught the rose with his hand but the thorn of steel pricked him like a needle; the bad boy cried and ran home,” etc., etc. And the “Daily Odes to the Well-Doer!” Who, having read them, will not bow piously before the unselfish service of that Number of all Numbers? And the dreadful red “Flowers of Court Sentences!” And the immortal tragedy, “Those Who Come Late to Work!” And the popular book, “Stanzas on Sex-Hygiene!”
Our whole life in all its complexity and beauty is thus stamped forever in the gold of words. Our poets do not soar any longer in the unknown; they have descended to earth and they march with us, keeping step to the accompaniment of our austere and mechanical March of the musical State Tower. Their lyre is the morning rubbing-sound of the electric tooth-brushes, and the threatening crack of the electric sparks coming from the Machine of the Well-Doer, and the magnificent echo of the Hymn of the United State, and the intimate ringing of the crystalline, shining wash-basins, and the stimulating rustle of the
falling curtains, and the joyous voices of the newest cook-books, and the almost imperceptible whisper of the street membranes....
Our gods are here, below. They are with us in the Bureau, in the kitchen, in the shops, in the rest-rooms. The gods have become like us, ergo we have become like gods. And we shall come to you, my unknown readers on another planet, we shall come to you to make your life as god-like, as rational and as correct as ours....
RECORD THIRTEEN
Fog
Thou
A Decidedly Absurd Adventure
I awoke at dawn. The rose-colored firmament looked into my eyes. Everything was beautiful, round. “O-90 is to come tonight. Surely I am healthy again.” I smiled and fell asleep. The Morning Bell! I got up; everything looked different. Through the glass of the ceiling, through the walls, nothing could be seen but fog,—fog everywhere, strange clouds, becoming heavier and nearer; the boundary between earth and sky disappeared. Everything seemed to be floating and thawing and falling.... Not a thing to hold to. No houses to be seen; they all were dissolved in the fog like crystals of salt in water. On the sidewalks and inside the houses dark figures like suspended particles in a strange milky solution, were hanging, below, above,—up to the tenth floor. Everything seemed to be covered with smoke, as though a fire were somewhere raging noiselessly.
At eleven-forty-five exactly (I looked at the clock particularly at that time to catch the figures, to save at least the figures) at eleven-forty-five, just before leaving, according to our Table of
Hours, to go and occupy myself with physical labor, I dropped into my room for a moment. Suddenly the telephone rang. A voice,—a long needle slowly penetrating my heart:
“Oh, you are at home? I am very glad! Wait for me at the corner. We shall go together.... Where? Well, you’ll see.”