"If your silence is intended to mean that you agree with me, then let us talk as adults do after the children have gone to bed; let us talk to the logical end. I ask: what was it that man from his diaper age dreamed of, tormented himself for, prayed for? He longed for that day when someone would tell him what happiness is and then would chain him to it. What else are we doing now? The ancient dream about a paradise.... Remember: there in paradise they know no desires any more, no pity, no love; there they are all--blessed. An operation has been performed upon their centre of fancy; that is why they are blessed, angels, servants of God.... And now, at the very moment when we have caught up with that dream, when we hold it like this": (He clenched his hand so, that if he had held a stone in it sap would have run out!) "At the moment when all that was left for us was to adorn our prize and distribute it amongst all in equal pieces, at that very moment you, you...." The cast-iron roar was suddenly broken off. I was as red as a piece of iron on an anvil, under the moulding sledge-hammer. This seemed to have stopped for a second, hanging in air, and I waited, waited ... until suddenly: "How old are you?" "Thirty-two." "Just double the age, and as simple as at sixteen! Listen. Is it possible that it really never occurred to you that _they_ (we do not yet know their names but I am certain you will disclose them to us), that _they_ were interested in you only as the Builder of the _Integral?_ only in order to be able through the use of you--" "Don't! Don't!" I cried. But it was like protecting yourself with your hands and crying to a bullet: you may still be hearing your own "don't" but the bullet meanwhile has burned you through, and writhing with pain, you are prostrated on the ground. Yes, yes; the Builder of the _Integral_.... Yes, yes.... At once there came back to me the angry face of U- with twitching, brick-red gills, on that morning when both of them.... I remember now, clearly, how I raised my eyes and laughed. A Socrates-like, bald-headed man was sitting before me; and small drops of sweat dotted the bald surface of his cranium. How simple, how magnificently trivial everything was! How simple! Almost to the point of being ridiculous. Laughter was choking me and bursting forth in puffs; I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed wildly out.... Steps. Wind. Damp, leaping fragments of lights and faces.... And while running: "No! Only to see her! To see her once more!" Here again, an empty white page. All I remember is feet; not people, just feet; hundreds of feet, confusedly stamping feet, falling from somewhere on the pavement; a heavy rain of feet.... And some cheerful, daring voice, and a shout that was probably for me: "Hey, hey! Come here! Come along with us!"