And behind my back rang out the contemptuous and indifferent reply:
“Quite possibly.”
“Tump-tump-tump....”
“It is all the same to you, Wondergood, but I cannot! Can’t you see: I cannot permit every miserable biped to call himself a man. There are too many of them, already. They multiply like rabbits, under the stimulus of physicians and laws. Death, deceived, cannot handle them all. It is confused and seems to have lost its dignity and moral authority. It is wasting its time in dancing halls. I hate them. It has become repulsive to me to walk upon this earth, fallen into the power of a strange, strange species. We must suspend the law, at least temporarily, and let death have its fling. However, they themselves will see to this. No, not I, but they, will do it. Think not that I am particularly cruel, no—I am only logical. I am only the conclusion, the symbol of equality, the sum total, the line beneath the column of figures. You may call it Ergo, Magnus, Ergo! They say: ‘two and two’ and I reply: ‘four.’ Exactly four. Imagine that the world has suddenly grown cold and immovable for a moment and you behold some such picture: here is a free and careless head and above it—a suspended axe. Here is a mass of powder and here a spark about to fall upon it. But it has stopped and does not fall. Here is a heavy structure, set upon a single, undermined foundation. But everything has grown rigid and the foundation holds. Here is a breast and here a hand aiming a bullet at it. Have I prepared all this? I merely touch the lever and press it down. The axe falls upon the laughing head and crushes it. The spark falls into the powder—all is off! The building crashes to the ground. The bullet pierces the ready breast. And I—I have merely touched the lever, I, Magnus Ergo! Think: would I be able to kill had I at my disposal only violins or other musical instruments?”
I laughed:
“Only violins!”
Magnus replied with laughter: his voice was hoarse and heavy:
“But they have other instruments, too! And I will use these instruments. See how simple and interesting all this is?”
“And what further, Magnus Ergo?”
“How do I know what’s to follow? I see only this page and solve only this problem. I know not what the next page contains.”