We: New Edition Read online

  I’ve read and heard a lot of unbelievable stuff about those times when people lived in freedom—that is, in disorganized wildness. But of all things the very hardest for me to believe was how the governmental power of that time, even if it was still embryonic, could have permitted people to live without even a semblance of our Table, without obligatory walks, without precisely established mealtimes, getting up and going to bed whenever it pleased them. Some historians even claim that in those days lights burned on the streets all night, people were out walking and driving on the streets all night long.

  Now, that’s something I simply cannot get through my head. No matter how limited their powers of reason might have been, still they must have understood that living like that was just murder, a capital crime—except it was slow, day-by-day murder. The government (or humanity) would not permit capital punishment for one man, but they permitted the murder of millions a little at a time. To kill one man—that is, to subtract 50 years from the sum of all human lives—that was a crime; but to subtract from the sum of all human lives 50,000,000 years—that was not a crime! No, really, isn’t that funny? This problem in moral math could be solved in half a minute by any ten-year-old Number today, but they couldn’t solve it. All their Kants together couldn’t solve it (because it never occurred to one of their Kants to construct a system of scientific ethics—that is, one based on subtraction, addition, division, and multiplication).

  And then—isn’t it absurd that a government (it had the nerve to call itself a government) could let sexual life proceed without the slightest control? Who, when, however much you wanted... Completely unscientific, like animals. And blindly, like animals, they produced young. Isn’t it funny—to know horticulture, poultry keeping, fish farming (we have very precise records of their knowing all this) and not to be able to reach the last rung of this logical ladder: child production. Not to come up with something like our Maternal and Paternal Norms.

  It’s so funny, so improbable, that now I’ve written it I’m afraid that you, my unknown readers, will think I’m making wicked jokes. You might suddenly think I’m making fun of you and keeping a straight face while I tell you the most absolute nonsense.

  But in the first place, I simply can’t make jokes—the default value of every joke is a lie; and in the second place, OneState Science declares that ancient life was exactly as I have described it, and OneState Science cannot make a mistake. Besides, where could any governmental logic have come from, anyway, when people lived in the condition known as freedom—that is, like beasts, monkeys, cattle? What could you have expected from them, if even in our day you can still very occasionally hear coming up from the bottom, from the hairy depths, a wild, ape-like echo?

  Only now and again, fortunately. These are, fortunately, no more than little chance details; it’s easy to repair them without bringing to a halt the great eternal progress of the whole Machine. And in order to discard some bolt that has gotten bent, we have the heavy, skillful hand of the Benefactor, we have the experienced eye of the Guardians.

  Which, now I think of it, reminds me about that Number yesterday with the double bend, like an S—I think I saw him once coming out of the Bureau of Guardians. Now I see why I had that instinctive feeling of respect for him, and why I felt so awkward when that strange I-330, in his presence ... I must confess that I-330 ...

  That’s the bell for sleep. It’s 22:30. See you tomorrow.

  RECORD 4

  Savage with Barometer Epilepsy If

  Up to this point I have found everything in life clear (not for nothing do I seem to have a certain partiality for that very word clear). But today ... I don’t understand.

  First: I did in fact get an order to be in that very auditorium 112, just as she had told me. Although the probability was something like:

  1500 is the number of auditoriums, and 10,000,000 the number of Numbers.

  Second: It might be best, however, to go in order.

  The auditorium. An immense sunlit hemisphere composed of massive glass sections. Circular rows of nobly spherical, smoothly shaved heads. I looked around with a slightly sinking heart. I think I was searching whether the pink crescent of my dear O’s lips would not shine above the blue waves of the yunies. There ... it looked like someone’s very white, shiny teeth ... but no, not hers. This evening at 21:00 hours O was to come to my place—it was perfectly natural that I’d want to see her here.

  The bell. We stood up and sang the Anthem of OneState, and on the platform appeared the phonolecturer, sparkling with wit and with his golden loudspeaker.

  “Honored Numbers! Recently our archaeologists unearthed a book of the twentieth century. The author ironically relates the story of the savage and the barometer. The savage noticed that every time the barometer showed Rain, it did in fact rain. And, since the savage wanted it to rain, he found a way to let out just enough mercury so that the thing would point to Rain. [The screen showed a savage bedecked with feathers letting out some mercury: general laughter.] You laugh. But don’t you think the European of that age was much more to be laughed at? Just like the savage, the European also wanted ‘rain.’ But Rain with a capital letter, algebraic Rain. But he stood in front of the barometer like a wet hen. The savage, at least, had more daring, more energy, and more—even if savage—logic. He was able to establish a connection between a cause and its effect. When he let that mercury out, he took the first step along the great path that ... ”

  But at this (I repeat: I’m writing what happened, leaving nothing out) I became for a time impermeable to the vivifying stream pouring out of the loudspeaker. It suddenly struck me that I shouldn’t have come (why “shouldn’t,” and how could I not have come, once I’d gotten the order?); it suddenly struck me that everything was empty, an empty shell. And I didn’t manage to switch my attention back on until the phonolecturer had gotten down to his basic theme: to our music, to mathematical composition (the mathematician is the cause, the music the result), to a description of the recently invented musicometer.

  “... Simply by turning this handle, any one of you can produce up to three sonatas per hour. And how much labor such a thing cost your ancestors! They could create only by whipping themselves up to attacks of ‘inspiration’—some unknown form of epilepsy. And here I have for you a most amusing example of what they got for their trouble—the music of Scriabin, twentieth century. This black box (a curtain was pulled aside on the stage, and there stood one of their ancient instruments), this black box was called a ”grand piano,” or even a “Royal Grand,” which is merely one more proof, if any were needed, of the degree to which all their music...”

  And then ... but again I’m not sure, because it might have been... no, I’ll say it right out ... because she, 1-330, went up to the “Royal Grand.” I was probably just dazzled by how she suddenly turned up, unexpectedly, on the stage.

  She was wearing one of the fantastic costumes of ancient times: a tightly fitting black dress, very low cut, which sharply emphasized the whiteness of her shoulders and bosom, and the warm shadow that undulated in time with her breathing between her ... and her blinding, almost wicked teeth....

  Her smile was a bite, and I was its target. She sat down. She began to play. Something wild, spasmodic, jumbled—like their whole life back then, when they didn’t have even the faintest adumbration of rational mechanics. And of course those around me were right to laugh, as they all did. But a few of us ... and I ... why was I among those few?

  Yes, epilepsy is a mental illness—pain ... A slow, sweet pain—it is a bite—let it bite deeper, harder. And then, slowly, the sun. Not this one, not ours, shining all sky-blue crystal regularity through the glass brick—no: a savage, rushing, burning sun—flinging everything away from itself—everything in little pieces.

  The one sitting next to me glanced to his left, at me, and giggled. For some reason I have a very vivid image of what I saw: a microscopic bubble of saliva appeared on his lips and burst. That bubble sobered me. I was myse
lf once again.

  Like everyone else, I heard nothing more than the stupid vain clattering of the strings. I laughed. Things became easy and simple. The talented phonolecturer had simply given us a too lively picture of that savage epoch—that’s all.

  After that, how pleasant it was to listen to our music of today. (A demonstration of it was given at the end, for contrast.) Crystalline chromatic scales of converging and diverging infinite series—and the synoptic harmonies of the formulae of Taylor and Maclaurin, wholesome, quadrangular, and weighty as Pythagoras’s pants; mournful melodies of a wavering, diminishing movement, the alternating bright beats of the pauses according to the lines of Frauenhofer—the spectral analysis of the planet ... What magnificence! What unalterable regularity! And what pathetic self-indulgence was that ancient music, limited only by its wild imaginings....

  We left through the broad doors of the auditorium in the usual way, marching four abreast in neat ranks. I caught a glimpse of the familiar double-bent figure somewhere to the side and bowed to him respectfully.

  Dear O was to come in an hour. I felt a pleasant and useful excitement. Once home I passed quickly by the desk, handed the duty officer my pink ticket, and got the pass to use the blinds. We get to use the blinds only on Sex Day. Otherwise we live in broad daylight inside these walls that seem to have been fashioned out of bright air, always on view. We have nothing to hide from one another. Besides, this makes it easier for the Guardians to carry out their burdensome, noble task. No telling what might go on otherwise. Maybe it was the strange opaque dwellings of the ancients that gave rise to their pitiful cellular psychology. “My [sic] home is my castle!” Brilliant, right?

  At 22:00 hours I lowered the blinds—and at that precise moment O came in, a little out of breath. She gave me her pink lips—and her pink ticket. I tore off the stub, but I couldn’t tear myself away from her rosy lips until the very last second: 22:15.

  Afterward I showed her my “notes” and spoke—rather well, I think—about the beauty of the square, the cube, the straight line. She listened in her enchantingly rosy way ... and suddenly a tear fell from her blue eyes ... then a second, a third ... right on the page that was open (page 7). Made the ink run. So ... I’ll have to copy it over.

  “Dear Dee, if only you ... if ...”

  Well, what does that “if” mean? “If” what? She was singing the same old tune again: a child. Or maybe it was something new... about... about that other one. Though even here it seemed as though... But no, that would be too stupid.

  RECORD 5

  Square Rulers of the World Pleasant and Useful Function

  Wrong again. Again I’m talking to you, my unknown reader, as though you were ... well, say, as though you were my old comrade R-13, the poet, the one with the African lips—everyone knows him. You, meanwhile, you might be anywhere ... on the moon, on Venus, on Mars, on Mercury. Who knows you, where you are and who you are?

  Here’s what: Imagine a square, a splendid, living square. And he has to tell about himself, about his life. You see—the last thing on earth a square would think of telling about is that he has four equal angles. He simply does not see that, it’s so familiar to him, such an everyday thing. That’s me. I’m in the situation of that square all the time. Take the pink tickets and all that—to me that’s nothing more than the four equal angles, but for you that might be, I don’t know, as tough as Newton’s binomial theorem.

  So. One of the ancient wise men—by accident, of course —managed to say something very smart: “Love and hunger rule the world.” Ergo: To rule the world, man has got to rule the rulers of the world. Our forebears finally managed to conquer Hunger, by paying a terrible price: I’m talking about the 200-Years War, the war between the City and the Country. It was probably religious prejudice that made the Christian savages fight so stubbornly for their “bread.”b But in the year 35 before the founding of OneState our present petroleum food was invented. True, only 0.2 of the world’s population survived. On the other hand, when it was cleansed of a thousand years of filth, how bright the face of the earth became! And what is more, the zero point two tenths who survived... tasted earthly bliss in the granaries of OneState.

  But isn’t it clear that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of that fraction known as happiness? And what sense would there be in all the numberless victims of the 200-Years War if there still remained in our life some cause for envy? But some cause did remain, because noses remained, the button noses and classical noses mentioned in that conversation on our walk, and because there are some whose love many people want, and others whose love nobody wants.

  It’s natural that once Hunger had been vanquished (which is algebraically the equivalent of attaining the summit of material well-being), OneState mounted an attack on that other ruler of the world, Love. Finally, this element was also conquered, i.e., organized, mathematicized, and our Lex sexualis was promulgated about 300 years ago: “Any Number has the right of access to any other Number as sexual product.”

  The rest is a purely technical matter. They give you a careful going-over in the Sexual Bureau labs and determine the exact content of the sexual hormones in your blood and work out your correct Table of Sex Days. Then you fill out a declaration that on your days you’d like to make use of Number (or Numbers) so-and-so and they hand you the corresponding book of tickets (pink). And that’s it.

  So it’s clear—there’s no longer the slightest cause for envy. The denominator of the happiness fraction has been reduced to zero and the fraction becomes magnificent infinity. And the very same thing that the ancients found to be a source of endless tragedy became for us a harmonious, pleasant, and useful function of the organism, just like sleep, physical work, eating, defecating, and so on. From this you can see how the mighty power of logic cleanses whatever it touches. Oh, if only you, my unknown readers, could come to know this divine power, if only you too could follow it to the end!

  Strange—today I’ve been writing about the loftiest summits of human history, the whole time I’ve been breathing the purest mountain air of thought ... but inside there is something cloudy, something spidery, something cross-shaped like that four-pawed X. Or is it my own paws bothering me, the fact that they’ve been in front of my eyes so long, these shaggy paws? I don’t like talking about them. I don’t like them. They’re a holdover from the savage era. Can it really be true that I contain ...

  I wanted to cross all that out ... because that’s beyond the scope of these notes. But then I decided: No, I’ll leave it in. Let these notes act like the most delicate seismograph, let them register the least little wiggles in my brainwaves, however insignificant. Sometimes, you never know, these are just the wiggles that give you the first warning ...

  But that’s absurd, now. I really should cross it out. We’ve channeled all the elements of nature. No catastrophe can happen.

  But now it’s perfectly clear to me: That strange inner feeling just comes from my being like the square I spoke about earlier. And there’s no X in me (there could not be)—I’m simply worried that there might still be some X in you, my unknown readers. But I have faith that you won’t judge me too harshly. I have faith that you will understand how hard it is for me to write, harder than for any other writer in the whole extent of human history: They wrote for their contemporaries, others wrote for posterity, but nobody ever wrote for their ancestors or for people like their wild remote ancestors....

  RECORD 6

  Accident Damned “Clear” 24 Hours

  I repeat: I’ve imposed on myself the duty of writing without holding anything back. So, sad as it may be, I have to record here that apparently even we haven’t yet finished the process of hardening and crystallizing life. The ideal is still a long way off. The ideal (this is clear) is that state of affairs where nothing ever happens anymore, but with us ... Here, just have a look at this: Today I read in the State Gazette that two days from now there will be a Justice Gala in Cube Square. So that means that once a
gain some Number has interfered with the progress of the great State Machine, again something unforeseen, unaccounted for in advance, has gone ahead and happened.

  And what is more—something has happened to me. True, this happened during the Personal Hour—that is to say, during the time specially set aside for unforeseen circumstances —but still ...

  At about 16:00 hours (or to be precise, at 15:50) I was at home. Suddenly the phone rang.

  “D-503?”

  “Yes. ”

  “You free?”

  “Yes. ”

  “It’s me, 1-330. I’ll fly by for you and we’ll go to the Ancient House, okay?”

  1-330. That woman annoys me, repels me—almost scares me. But for that very reason I said: “Yes.”

  Five minutes later we were already in the aero, moving through the sky of the month of May, its blue majolica, and the light sun was zooming along behind us in its own golden aero, keeping up but never passing. But there ahead of us we could see the white cataract of a cloud, a stupid downy thing like the cheek of some antique “cupidon,” and that somehow bothered me. The forward window was raised, and the wind dried your lips so that you kept running your tongue over them, which made you constantly think about lips.

  Soon you could see in the distance the cloudy green spots—over there, beyond the Wall. Then your heart jumps into your throat, nothing you can do about it, and you sink down, down, down, like a steep fall downhill, and you’re at the Ancient House. This entire strange, rickety, godforsaken structure is clad all about in a glass shell. Otherwise, of course, it would have collapsed long ago. At the glass door was an old woman, wrinkled all over, especially her mouth: nothing but wrinkles, pleats, her lips already gone inside, her mouth kind of grown over. And it was against all odds that she could speak. But she spoke.