"How funny! A purely childish question. You tell something to children, come to the very end, yet they will invariably ask you, 'what further?' and 'what for?'" "Children are the only courageous philosophers. And courageous philosophers are invariably children. One ought always to ask like children, 'what further'?" "Nothing further! Period. In the whole world evenly, everywhere, there is distributed...." "Ah, 'evenly!' 'Everywhere!' That is the point, entropy! Psychological entropy. Don't you as a mathematician know that only differences (only differences!), in temperature, only thermic contrasts make for life? And if all over the world there are evenly warm or evenly cold bodies, they must be pushed off! ... in order to get flame, explosions! And we shall push!..." "But I-330, please realize that our ancestors during the Two Hundred Years' War did exactly that!" "Oh, they were right! A thousand times right! They did one wrong thing, however; later they began to believe that they were the _last number_, a number that does not exist in nature. Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo; he was right in that the earth revolves about the sun but he did not know that our whole solar system revolves about some other centre, he did not know that the real (not relative) orbit of the earth is not a naive circle." "And you, the Mephi?" "We? For the time being we know that there is no _last_ number. We may forget that some day. Of course, we shall certainly forget it when we grow old, as everything inevitably grows old. Then we shall inevitably fall like autumn leaves from the trees, like you the day-after-tomorrow.... No, no dear, not you personally. You are with us, are you not? You are with us?" Flaming, stormy, sparkling! I never before had seen her in such a state. She embraced me with her whole self; I disappeared. Her last word, looking steadily, deeply into my eyes: "Then, do not forget: at twelve o'clock sharp." And I answered: "Yes, I remember." She left. I was alone amidst a rebellious, multi-voiced commotion of blue, red, green, saffron-yellow and orange.... Yes, at twelve!... Suddenly a feeling of something foreign on my face, of something implanted, that could not be brushed off. Suddenly, yesterday morning, and U- and all she shouted into the face of I-330! Why, how absurd! I hastened to get out of the house and home, home! Somewhere behind me I heard the chattering of birds beyond the Wall. And ahead of me in the setting sun the balls of cupolas made of red, crystallized fire, enormous flaming cubes--houses, and the sharp point of the Accumulating Tower high in the sky like a paralyzed streak of lightning. And all this, all this impeccable, most geometric beauty, shall I, I myself, with my hands...? Is there no way out? No path? No trail?