We: New Edition Read online

  I could already see us—the three of us, her, me, and I-330—going down the corridors, taking her to where the flowers and grass and leaves ... But she took a step back away from me and the horns of her pink crescent were trembling and turning downward.

  “You’re talking about ... her,” she said.

  “About? ...” I was embarrassed, for some reason. “Of course, I’m talking about her.”

  “And you want me to go to that woman? You want me to ask her to ... ? Don’t you ever mention her to me again!”

  She bent over and hurried away from me. Then, as if she’d remembered something else, she turned round and shouted: “So I’ll die—so what! It’s none of your business—what do you care?”

  It’s quiet. Pieces of the blue towers and walls keep falling from above and grow before your eyes with horrible swiftness, but they still have hours, maybe even days, to fly through infinity; the invisible threads float slowly past, settle on your face, and you can’t brush them off, there’s no way to get rid of them.

  I walk slowly toward the Ancient House. In my heart is the absurd, agonizing compression....

  RECORD 30

  The Final Number Galileo’s Mistake Wouldn’t It Be Better?

  Here’s the conversation I had with I-330 yesterday in the Ancient House amid a colorful riot of reds, greens, bronze-yellows, whites, and oranges, which jammed any logical train of thought. And all the while we were beneath the frozen marmoreal smile of the ancient flat-nosed poet.

  I reproduce this conversation verbatim, because in my opinion it is going to have an enormous, decisive meaning for the fate of OneState and, what is more, for the universe. And also because you, my unknown readers, might find here something that justifies me....

  I-330 wasted no time and hit me with everything immediately: “I know that you’re making the first test flight of the INTEGRAL day after tomorrow. That’s the day we take it over.”

  “What? Day after tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Sit down and don’t get excited. We don’t have a minute to lose. There were twelve Mephi among the hundreds that the Guardians seized at random yesterday. If we wait two or three days, they’ll be killed.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “To observe how the test is going, they’ll have to send you electricians, mechanics, doctors, meteorologists. And precisely at 12:00—remember this—when the bell rings for lunch and everyone files into the dining room, we’ll stay behind in the corridor, lock them in the dining room, and the INTEGRAL is ours. You understand, it’s got to be this way, no matter what. The INTEGRAL in our hands—with a weapon like that we’ll finish the whole thing at once, quickly, painlessly. Their aeros will be a joke! Like midges against a shrike! And then if we need to, we can turn the blast from the engines against them and let that do the work....”

  I jumped up. “This is unthinkable! It’s stupid! Can’t you see that what you’re plotting is ... revolution?”

  “Yes—revolution! Why is that stupid?”

  “Stupid—because there can’t be a revolution. Because our—this is me talking, not you—our revolution was the final one. And there cannot be any further revolutions of any kind. Everybody knows that....”

  Her brows make a sharp mocking triangle: “My dear, you are a mathematician. You’re even more, you’re a philosopher of mathematics. So do this for me: Tell me the final number.”

  “The what? I ... I don’t understand. What final number?”

  “You know—the last one, the top, the absolute biggest.”

  “But, 1-330, that’s stupid. Since the number of numbers is infinite, how can there be a final one?”

  “And how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one. The number of revolutions is infinite. The last one—that’s for children. Infinity frightens children, and it’s essential that children get a good night’s sleep....”

  “But what’s the point? What’s the point of all this? In the name of the Benefactor, what point is there if everyone is already happy?”

  “Let’s suppose ... Okay, good, let’s even suppose that what you say is true. Then what?”

  “That’s silly! A completely infantile question. Tell something to children, tell them the whole thing right to the end, and they’ll still ask: Then what? What comes next?”

  “Children are the only bold philosophers. And bold philosophers will always be children. So you’re right, it’s a child’s question, just as it should be: Then what?”

  “Then nothing! Finished. All through the universe, evenly spread, everywhere ...”

  “Aha—evenly, everywhere! That is precisely what we’re talking about—entropy, psychological entropy. You’re a mathematician. Surely you see that only differences, differences of temperature, only contrasts in degree of heat, only that makes for life? And if throughout the universe all bodies are equally warm, or equally cool ... You’ve got to smash them into each other—so there’ll be fire, explosion, inferno. And we—we’re going to smash them.”

  “But, I-330—remember, just remember: That’s just what our ancestors did—during the 200-Years War....”

  “Oh, and they were right, they were a thousand times right. They made only one mistake: Afterward, they got the notion that they were the final number—something that doesn’t exist in nature. Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo. He was right that the earth revolves around the sun, but he didn’t know that the entire solar system revolves around yet another center; he didn’t know that the real orbit of the earth, as opposed to the relative orbit, is by no means some naive circle....”

  “And you?”

  “And we—for the time being at least we know there’s no final number. Maybe we’ll forget this. No—it’s even probable that we’ll forget it, when we get old, the way everything unavoidably gets old. At which time we, too, will inevitably go down, just as leaves fall from the tree in the autumn—just as, the day after tomorrow, you will ... But no, no, darling—not you. Because you’re with us, you’re with us!”

  A hot flashing whirlwind—I’d never seen her like this, and she was all around me, I vanished into her....

  The last thing she said, looking straight into my eyes: “Remember now: at 12:00.”

  And I said, “Yes, I remember.”

  She left. I was alone amid the noisy tumult of many voices—blue, red, green, bronze-yellow, orange....

  Yes, at 12:00....—and suddenly the crazy feeling of something odd that’s settled on your face, something you can’t manage to wipe away. Suddenly, I recall yesterday morning, U, and what she was shouting in 1-330’s face. ... Why? How absurd.

  I rushed to get outside, and home, as soon as I could, home ...

  From somewhere behind me I heard the piercing squeal of the birds above the Wall. And ahead, in the light of the setting sun, crystallized crimson fire, were the globes of the cupolas, huge flaming cubes of buildings, the spire of the Accumulator Tower, like frozen lightning in the sky. And all that, all that unimpeachable geometrical beauty, I was with my own hands going to ... I couldn’t believe there was no way out, no other path.

  I go past some auditorium (don’t remember the number). Inside, benches have been piled up; in the middle are tables covered with sheets of snow-white glass; on the white the sunlight leaves a spot of blood. Hiding in all this is some kind of tomorrow—unknown and therefore terrifying. This is against nature: for a thinking, sighted creature to live among irregularities, unknowns, X’s. Suppose they blindfolded you and forced you to walk by feeling your way along, stumbling, and knowing that right there, inches away, was the edge. Just one step, and all that’s left of you is a piece of flattened dead meat. Isn’t that just what I’m doing?

  ... And what if you don’t wait? You just dive over the edge yourself? Wouldn’t that be the only right thing to do, the one that would solve everything?

  RECORD 31

  The Great Operation I Have Forgiven Everything A Train Wreck

  Saved! At the very last moment, whe
n it already seemed there was nothing to grab at, when it seemed everything was already over ...

  It was as if you’d already climbed the steps up to the Benefactor’s terrible Machine, and the bell-glass had already come down over you with a heavy clank, and for the last time in your life you looked around—hurry!—to swallow the blue sky with your eyes ...

  And suddenly: It was only a “dream.” The sun is pink and happy, and the wall—what a pleasure to run your hand over the cold wall, and the pillow, you can’t get enough of looking at the dent your head has made in the white pillow ...

  That will give you at least some idea of what I felt this morning when I read the State Gazette. I’d had a terrifying dream, and it was over. And I—I’d had so little courage, so little faith, I was even thinking of taking my own life. I’m ashamed now to read the last lines that I wrote yesterday. But it doesn’t matter: Let them be, let them stand as a reminder of that incredible thing that might have happened—and that now will not happen ... that’s right, will not happen!

  Here’s the headline that glowed from page one of the State Gazette:

  REJOICE!

  For henceforth you are perfect! Up until this day your offspring, the machines, were more perfect than you.

  IN WHAT WAY?

  Every spark of the dynamo is a spark of purest reason. Every stroke of the piston is an immaculate syllogism. But do you not also contain this same infallible reason?

  The philosophy of the cranes, the presses, and the pumps is as perfect and clear as a circle drawn with a compass. But is your philosophy any less perfect?

  The beauty of the mechanism is in the precise and invariable rhythm, like that of the pendulum. But you —sustained as you were from infancy on the Taylorian system—are you any less pendulum-perfect?

  But think of this:

  The mechanism has no imagination.

  When you were at work did you ever happen to see a distant, idiotic, dreamy smile spread across the physiognomy of a cylindrical pump? At night, during the hours designated for rest, did you ever happen to hear the cranes toss restlessly and heave sighs?

  NO!

  But—and you should be ashamed of yourselves!—the Guardians more and more frequently note that you yourselves smile and sigh in just this way. And—cover your eyes for very shame!—the historians of OneState are seeking to resign rather than record certain shameful events.

  But you are not to blame. You are sick. The name of your illness is:

  IMAGINATION.

  This is the worm that eats out black wrinkles on the brow. This is the fever that drives you to run farther and farther, even though that “farther” began in the place where happiness ends. This is the last barrier on the path to happiness.

  But rejoice: It has already been demolished.

  The path is free.

  The latest discovery of State Science: The imagination is centered in a wretched little brain node in the region of the pons Varolii. Expose this node to three doses of X rays—and you are cured of imagination.

  FOREVER

  You are perfect, you are the equal of the machine, the path to 100 percent happiness is free. Hurry, then, all of you, young and old, hurry to undergo the Great Operation. Hurry to the auditoriums where the Great Operation is performed. Long live the Great Operation! Long live OneState! Long live the Benefactor!

  ... You—if you had only read all this not in my notes, which are like some ancient whimsical novel—if your trembling hands held, as mine now do, this sheet of newspaper still smelling of fresh ink—if you only knew, as I do, that this is all the most genuine reality, if not of today then of tomorrow—wouldn’t you feel exactly what I feel? Wouldn’t your head spin the way mine does now? Wouldn’t you feel this prickling—scary, sweet, icy—along your arms and down your back? Wouldn’t you also think you’re a giant, an Atlas, and that if you stood up straight you’d be sure to hit your head against the glass ceiling?

  I grabbed the telephone: “1-330 ... Yes, I said 330.” Then, choking, “Oh good, you’re home. Did you read ... you’re reading it? Isn’t that ... It’s astonishing!”

  “Yes....” Long, dark silence. I could barely hear a low sound in the receiver. She was thinking something over.... “I’ve got to see you today without fail. Yes, at my place after 16:00 hours. Without fail.”

  The darling. My precious, precious darling! “Without fail.” I felt myself smiling, and I couldn’t help it, so now I was going to carry this smile through the streets like a torch, high over my head....

  Once outside, the wind hit me. It was twisting, whistling, cutting. But it made me even happier. Go on, howl: You won’t knock over any walls now. Overhead, cast-iron gray clouds were tearing along. Go to it—you can’t dim the sun. We’ve fastened it to the zenith with a chain forever—we Joshuas, sons of Nun.

  At the corner was a dense little group of Joshuas standing with their foreheads pressed against the glass wall. Inside, one was already lying on a blindingly white table. The soles of his bare feet could be seen sticking out at a yellow angle from beneath the white; white medics were bending over his head; a white hand was passing to another hand a syringe filled with something.

  “And you, how come you aren’t going?” I asked no one in particular, or rather, all of them.

  “And how about you?” Someone’s globular head turned to me.

  “I’m going later. First I’ve got to ...”

  I left, slightly embarrassed. I really did have to see 1-330 first. But why “first”? I couldn’t answer this.

  The hangar. The INTEGRAL, pale icy blue, shone and sparkled. In the engine compartment the dynamo hummed —it lovingly repeated one and the same word over and over—some word of mine, I felt. Bending over, I stroked the long cold tube of the engine. Darling ... what a precious darling. Tomorrow you will come to life, tomorrow for the first time in your life you will shudder from the fiery burning flashes in your womb....

  How might I have looked upon this mighty glass monster if everything had remained as it was yesterday? If I knew that tomorrow at 12:00 I would betray it—yes, betray it?

  I felt a careful touch on my elbow from behind. I turned round. The Second Builder’s flat platter of a face.

  “You know, of course ...” he said.

  “What? The operation? Yes, how about that? How about the way everything, all at once ... ?”

  “No, not that. The test flight’s been postponed, until day after tomorrow. All because of that operation.... We knocked ourselves out for nothing....”

  All because of the Operation. What a funny, limited person. He can’t see over the edge of his platter. If only he knew that, except for this Operation, he’d be locked in a glass cage tomorrow at 12:00, thrashing about and climbing the walls....

  It’s 15:30 and I’m back in my room. I came in and saw U. She was sitting at my table looking like a figure of ivory, hard and straight, her right cheek propped in her hand. She must have been waiting for a long time, since when she jumped up to meet me her fingers left five creases in her cheek.

  For one second that most unfortunate morning flashed back to me, when we were here in the same spot next to the table, she next to 1-330, in a rage.... But only for a second—it was instantly wiped away by today’s sunshine. That’s how it is if you walk into a room on a bright day and flip on the light switch absentmindedly: The lightbulb does in fact come on, but it might as well not be there, it’s so silly, weak, useless....

  Without thinking about it, I stuck out my hand, I was forgiving everything—she grabbed both my hands in a firm, prickly grip while her sagging cheeks, like ancient ornaments, quivered with excitement: “I’ve been waiting.... I only came in for a minute.... I just wanted to tell you how happy I am, how glad I am for you! Tomorrow or the day after, you know, you’ll be completely well, you’ll be born all over again. ...”

  I saw a sheet of paper on the table—the last two pages of my notes from yesterday. They lay exactly where I’d left them last night. I
f she saw what I wrote there ... But what difference did it make? That was only history now, it was now so far away it was funny, like something seen through the wrong end of the binoculars....

  “Yes,” I said. “And do you know what, just now I was walking along the avenue, and there was a man in front of me, and he cast a shadow on the sidewalk. And the shadow, see, was glowing. And I think—no, I’m absolutely sure of it—that tomorrow there won’t be any shadows, not from people, not from things. The sun will be—right through everything....”

  She was gentle but strict: “You are imagining things! I wouldn’t allow my children at school to talk that way. ...”

  And she went on talking about the children, about how she’d taken them all, in a bunch, to the Operation, and about how they’d had to tie them down, and about how you had “to love without mercy, without mercy,” and about how she would finally make up her mind to ...

  She smoothed out the gray-blue fabric between her knees, quickly plastered me with her smile, and, without saying anything more, left.

  And ... fortunately the sun did not stand still today but went running on and now it was already 16:00 and I was knocking on the door and my heart was knocking inside me....

  “Come in!”

  I drop onto the floor beside her chair, put my arms around her legs, throw my head back, and look into her eyes, first into one and then into the other, to see myself in each, myself in wonderful captivity....

  There on the other side of the wall was a storm, there the clouds looked more and more like cast iron, but so what? Inside my head things were crowded, boisterous words were spilling over, and I was noisily flying somewhere, like the sun—no, wait, not somewhere, now we know where—and the planets were flying behind me, planets spurting flame and peopled with fiery singing flowers—and mute blue planets, where the rational stones are organized into societies—planets that, like our earth, have reached the apex of absolute, hundred-percent happiness....