We

Thirty-sixth Entry

It’s strange—there seems to be a blank white page inside my head. I don’t remember how I walked there, how I waited (I know I waited)—nothing, not a single sound, or face, or gesture. As if all the lines connecting me with the world were cut.

I recalled myself only when I stood before Him, and was terrified to raise my eyes: I saw only His huge, cast-iron hands upon His knees. These hands seemed to weigh down even Him, bending His knees. Slowly He moved His fingers. The face was somewhere high up, in a haze, and it seemed that His voice did not thunder, did not deafen me, was like an ordinary human voice only because it came to me from such a height.

“And so—you too? You, the Builder of the Integral? You, who were to have become the greatest of conquistadors? You, whose name was to initiate a new, magnificent chapter in the history of the One State___You?”

The blood rushed to my head, my cheeks. Again a blank page—nothing but the pulse in my temples, and the resonant voice above, but not a single word. It was only when He ceased to speak that I recovered. I saw: the hand moved with the weight of a hundred tons—crept slowly—and a finger pointed at me.

“Well? Why are you silent? Is this so, or is it not? An executioner?”

“It is so,” I answered obediently. And then I clearly heard every word He spoke: “Oh, well! You think I am afraid of this word? Have you ever tried to pull off its shell and see what is inside? I will show you.

Remember: a blue hill, a cross, a crowd. Some—above, splashed with blood, are nailing a body to a cross; others—below, splashed with tears—are looking on. Does it not seem to you that the role of those above is the most difficult, the most important? If not for them, would this entire majestic tragedy have taken place? They were reviled by the ignorant crowd: but for that the author of the tragedy—God—should have rewarded them all the more generously. And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet—you understand—this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time-wild, shaggy—he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is—its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn.

Well—argue with me, prove the contrary!”

How could I argue? How could I argue, when these were (formerly) my own ideas—except that I had never been able to clothe them in such brilliant, impenetrable armor? I was silent…

“If this means that you agree with me, then let us talk like adults, after the children have gone to bed: let us say it all, to the very end. I ask you: what did people—from their very infancy—pray for, dream about, long for? They longed for some one to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain. What are we doing now, if not this very thing? The ancient dream of paradise… Remember: those in paradise no longer know desires, no longer know pity or love. There are only the blessed, with their imaginations excised (this is the only reason why they are blessed)—angels, obedient slaves of God… And now, at the very moment when we have already caught up with the dream, when we have seized it so (He clenched His hand: if it had held a stone, it would have squeezed juice out of it), when all that needed to be done was to skin the quarry and divide it into shares—at this very moment you—you…”

The cast-iron echoing voice suddenly broke off. I was red as a bar of iron on the anvil under the striking hammer. The hammer hung silently, and waiting for it was even more terrify…

Then, suddenly: “How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And your naivete is of someone half that age—someone of sixteen! Has it really never entered your head that they—we still don’t know their names, but I am certain we shall learn them from you—that they needed you only as the Builder of the Integral? Only in order to use you as…”

“Don’t! Don’t!” I cried.

It was like holding up your hands and shouting it to a bullet: you still hear your ridiculous.

“Don’t,” and the bullet has already gone through you, you are already writhing on the floor.

Yes, yes—the Builder of the Integral… Yes, yes… and all at once—the memory of U’s raging face with quivering brick-red gills—that morning, when they both were in my room…

I clearly remember: I laughed, and raised my eyes. Before me sat a bald, Socratically bald, man, with tiny drops of sweat on his bald head.

How simple everything was. How majestically banal and ridiculously simple.

Laughter choked me, broke out in puffs. I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed out.

Stairs, wind, wet, jumping fragments of lights, faces—and, as I ran: No! To see her! Only once more—to see her!

And here again there is a blank white page. I can remember one thing only—feet. Not people-feet.

Hundreds of feet falling from somewhere down on the pavement, stamping without rhythm, a heavy rain of feet. And a gay, mischievous song, and a shout—probably to me—“Hey, Hey! Come here, to us!”

Then—a deserted square, filled to the brim with dense wind. In the middle, a dim, heavy, dreadful mass—the Benefactor’s Machine. And—such a strange, seemingly incongruous echo within me: a dazzling white pillow; on the pillow, a head, thrown back, with eyes half-closed; the sharp, sweet line of teeth… And all of this absurdly, terrifyingly connected with the Machine—I know how, but I still refuse to see, to name it aloud—I do not want to—no.

I shut my eyes and sat down on the stairs leading up to the Machine. It must have been raining. My face was wet. Somewhere in the distance, muffled cries. But no one hears me, no one hears me cry: Save me from this—save me!

If I had a mother, like the ancients: mine—yes, precisely—my mother. To whom I would be—not the Builder of the Integral, and not number D-503, and not a molecule of the One State, but a simple human being—a piece of herself, trampled, crushed, discarded… And let me nail, or let me be nailed—perhaps it’s all the same—but so that she would hear what no one else heard, so that her old woman’s mouth, drawn together, wrinkled…