I passed by an auditorium (I do not recall its number). Inside, the benches were stacked along the walls. In the middle, tables covered with snow-white glass sheets, with pink stains of sunny blood on the white.... There was foreshadowed in all that some unknown and therefore alarming tomorrow. It is unnatural for a thinking and seeing human being to live among irregularities, unknowns, X's. If suddenly your eyes were covered with a bandage and you were let go to feel around, to stumble, ever aware that somewhere very close to you there is the border-line, one step only and nothing but a compressed, smothered piece of flesh will be left of you.... I now feel somewhat like that. ... And what if without waiting for anything I should ... just head down.... Would it not be the only right thing to do? To disentangle everything at once? RECORD THIRTY-ONE The Great Operation I Forgave Everything The Collision of Trains Saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was nothing to hold to, that it was the end!... It was as if you already ascended the steps towards the threatening machine of the Well-Doer, or as if the great glass Bell with a heavy thud already covered you, and for the last time in life you looked at the blue sky to swallow it with your eyes ... when suddenly, it was only a dream! The sun is pink and cheerful and the wall ... what happiness to be able to touch the cold wall! And the pillow! To delight endlessly in the little cavity formed by your own head in the white pillow!... This is approximately what I felt, when I read the State Journal this morning. It has been all a terrible dream and this dream is over. And I was so feeble, so unfaithful, that I thought of selfish, voluntary death! I am ashamed now to reread the last lines of yesterday. But let them remain as a memory of that incredible might-have-happened, which will not happen! On the front page of the State Journal the following gleamed: "REJOICE! "For from now on we are _perfect!_ "Before today your own creation, engines, were more perfect than you. "WHY? "For every spark from a dynamo--is a spark of pure reason; each motion of a piston--a pure syllogism. Is it not true that the same faultless reason is within you? "The philosophy of the cranes, presses, and pumps is finished and clear like a circle. But is your philosophy less circular? The beauty of a mechanism lies in its immutable, precise rhythm, like that of a pendulum. But have you not become as precise as a pendulum, you who are brought up on the system of Taylor? "Yes, but there is one difference: "MECHANISMS HAVE NO FANCY "Did you ever notice a pump cylinder during its work show upon its face a wide, distant, sensuously-dreaming smile? Did you ever hear cranes restlessly toss about and sigh at night, during the hours designed for rest? "NO!