At seventeen o'clock exactly, I was at the lecture. There I suddenly
realized that I did not tell the whole truth to the old woman. I-330
was not there alone _now_. Possibly this fact, that I involuntarily
told the old woman a lie, was torturing me now and distracting my
attention. Yes, not alone,--that was the point.
After twenty-one-thirty o'clock I had a free hour. I could therefore
have gone to the office of the Guardians to make my report; but
after that stupid adventure I was so tired--besides, the law
provides two days. I shall have time tomorrow; I have another
twenty-four hours.
RECORD SEVEN
An Eyelash
Taylor
Henbane and Lily of the Valley
Night. Green, orange, blue. The red royal instrument. The yellow
dress. Then a brass Buddha. Suddenly it lifted the brass eyelids
and sap began to flow from it, from Buddha. Sap also from the yellow
dress. Even in the mirror,--drops of sap, and from the large bed
and from the children's bed and soon from myself.... It is horror,
mortally sweet horror!...
I woke up. Soft blue light, the glass of the walls, of the chairs,
of the table was glimmering. This calmed me. My heart stopped
palpitating. Sap! Buddha! How absurd! I am sick, it is clear; I
never saw dreams before. They say that to see dreams was a common
normal thing with the ancients. Yes, after all, their life was a
whirling carousel: green, orange, Buddha, sap,--but we, people
of today, we know all too well that dreaming is a serious mental
disease. I.... Is it possible that _my_ brain, this precise, clean,
glittering mechanism, like a chronometer without a speck of dust on
it, is...? Yes it is, now. I really feel there in the brain some
foreign body like an eyelash in the eye. One does not feel one's
whole body but this eye with a hair in it, one cannot forget it for
a second....
The cheerful, crystalline sound of the bell at my head. Seven
o'clock. Time to get up. To the right and to the left as in mirrors,
to the right and to the left through the glass walls I see others
like myself, other rooms like my own, other clothes like my own,
movements like mine, duplicated thousands of times. This invigorates
me; I see myself as a part of an enormous, vigorous, united body;
and what precise beauty! Not a single superfluous gesture, or bow,
or turn. Yes, this Taylor was undoubtedly the greatest genius of the
ancients. True, he did not come to the idea of applying his method
to the whole life, to every step throughout the twenty-four hours of
the day; he was unable to integrate his system from one o'clock to
twenty-four. I cannot understand the ancients. How could they write
whole libraries about some Kant and take notice only slightly of
Taylor, of this prophet who saw ten centuries ahead?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account