LITMIR.BIZ

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to me that the door closed after her only a second ago and that I could still overtake her and grasp her hand,—and that she might laugh out and say....

      I-330 was at the table. I rushed towards her.

      “You? You! I have been.... I saw your room.... I thought you....” But midway I hurt myself upon the sharp, motionless spears of her eyelashes and I stopped. I remembered: she looked at me in the same way before,—in the Integral. It was urgent to tell her everything in one second and in such a way that she should believe—or she would never....

      “Listen, I-330, I must.... I must ... everything! No, no, one moment—let me have a glass of water first.”

      My mouth was as dry as though it were lined with blotting paper. I poured a glass of water but I could not.... I put the glass back upon the table, and with both hands firmly grasped the carafe.

      Now I noticed that the blue smoke was from a cigarette. She brought the cigarette to her lips and with avidity she drew in and swallowed the smoke as I did water; then she said:

      “Don’t. Be silent. Don’t you see it matters little? I came anyway. They are waiting for me below.... Do you want these minutes which are our last...?”

      Abruptly she threw the cigarette on the floor and bent backwards over the side of the chair to reach the button in the wall (it was quite difficult to do so), and I remember how the chair swayed slightly, how two of its legs were lifted. Then the curtains fell.

      She came close to me and embraced me. Her knees, through her dress, were like a slow, gentle, warm, enveloping and permeating poison....

      Suddenly (it happens at times) you plunge into sweet, warm sleep—when all at once, as if something pricks you, you tremble and your eyes are again widely open. So it was now; there on the floor in her room were the pink checks stamped with traces of footsteps, one of them bore the letter F. and some figures.... Plus and minus fused within my mind into one lump.... I could not say even now what sort of a feeling it was but I crushed her so that she cried out with pain....

      One more minute out of these ten or fifteen; her head thrown back, lying on the bright white pillow, her eyes half closed, a sharp, sweet line of teeth.... And all this reminded me in an irresistible, absurd, torturing way about something forbidden, something not permissible at that moment. More tenderly, more cruelly, I pressed her to myself, more bright grew the blue traces of my fingers....

      She said, without opening her eyes (I noticed this), “They say you went to see the Well-Doer yesterday, is it true?”

      “Yes.”

      Then her eyes opened widely and with delight I looked at her and saw that her face grew quickly paler and paler, that it effaced itself, disappearing,—only the eyes remained.

      I told her everything. Only for some reason, what I don’t know—(no, it is not true, I know the reason) I was silent about one thing: His assertion at the end that they needed me only in order....

      Like the image on a photographic plate in a developing fluid, her face gradually reappeared; the cheeks, the white line of teeth, the lips. She stood up and went to the mirror-door of the closet. My mouth was dry again. I poured water but it was revolting to drink it; I put the glass back on the table and asked:

      “Did you come to see me because you wanted to inquire...?”

      A sharp, mocking triangle of brows drawn to the temples looked at me from the mirror. She turned around to say something but said nothing.

      It was not necessary; I knew.

      To bid her good-bye, I moved my foreign limbs, struck the chair with them. It fell upside down, dead, like the table in her room. Her lips were cold ... just as cold was once the floor, here, near my bed....

      When she left I sat down on the floor, bent over the cigarette-butt....

      I cannot write any more—I no longer want to!

      Record Thirty Nine

      The End

      All this was like the last crystal of salt thrown into a saturated solution; quickly, needle-like crystals began to appear, to grow more substantial and solid. It was clear to me; the decision was made and tomorrow morning I shall do it! It amounts to suicide but perhaps then I shall be re-born. For only what is killed can be re-born.

      Every second the sky twitched in convulsion there in the west. My head was burning and pulsating inside; I was up all night and I fell asleep only at about seven o’clock in the morning when the darkness of the night was already dispelled and becoming gray and when the roofs crowded with birds became visible....

      I woke up; ten o’clock. Evidently the bell did not ring today. On the table—left from yesterday—there stood the glass of water. I gulped the water down with avidity and I ran; I had to do it quickly, as quickly as possible.

      The sky was deserted, blue, all eaten up by the storm. Sharp corners of shadows.... Everything seemed to be cut out of blue autumnal air—thin, dangerous to touch; it seemed so brittle, ready to disperse into glass dust. Within me something similar; I ought not to think; it was dangerous to think, for....

      And I did not think, perhaps I did not even see properly; I only registered impressions. There on the pavement, thrown from somewhere, branches were strewn; their leaves were green, amber and cherry-red. Above, crossing each other, birds and aeros were tossing about. Here below heads, open mouths, hands waving branches.... All this must have been shouting, buzzing, chirping....

      Then—streets empty as if swept by a plague. I remember I stumbled over something disgustingly soft, yielding yet motionless. I bent down—a corpse. It was lying flat, the legs apart. The face.... I recognized the thick negro lips which even now seemed to sprinkle with laughter. His eyes, firmly screwed in, laughed into my face. One second.... I stepped over him and ran. I could no longer.... I had to have everything done as soon as possible, or else I felt I would break, I would break in two like an overloaded sail....

      Luckily it was not more than twenty steps away; I already saw the sign with the golden letters: “The Bureau of Guardians.” At the door I stopped for a moment to gulp down as much air as I could and stepped in.

      Inside, in the corridor stood an endless chain of numbers, holding small sheets of paper and heavy note-books. They moved slowly, advancing a step or two and stopping again. I began to be tossed about along the chain, my head was breaking to pieces; I pulled them by the sleeves, I implored them as a sick man implores to be given something that would even at the price of sharpest pain end everything, forever.

      A woman with a belt tightly clasped around her waist over the unif and with two distinctly protruding squatty hemispheres tossing about as if she had eyes on them, chuckled at me:

      “He has a belly-ache! Show him to the room second door to the right!”

      Everybody laughed, and because of that laughter something rose in my throat; I felt I should either scream or ... or....

      Suddenly from behind some one touched my elbow. I turned around. Transparent wing-ears! But they were not pink as usual; they were purplish red; his Adam’s apple was tossing about as though ready to tear the covering....

      Quickly boring into me: “What are you here for?”

      I seized him.

      “Quickly! Please! Quickly! ... into your office.... I must tell everything ... right away.... I am glad that you.... It may be terrible that it should be you to whom.... But it is well, it is well....”

      He too, knew her; this made it even more tormenting for me. But perhaps he too, would tremble when he should hear.... And we would both be killing.... And I would not be alone at that, my supreme second....

      The door closed with a slam. I remember a piece of paper was caught beneath the door and it rustled on the floor when the door closed. And then a strange airless silence covered us as if a glass

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