It was long ago during my school-days, when I first encountered the square-root of minus one. I remember it all very clearly; a bright globe-like class hall, about a hundred round heads of children and Plappa--our mathematician. We nicknamed him Plappa; it was a very much used-up mathematician, loosely screwed together; as the member of the class who was on duty that day would be putting the plug into the socket behind we would hear at first from the megaphone, "Plap-plap-plap-plap--tshshsh...." Only then the lesson would follow. One day Plappa told us about irrational numbers, and I remember I wept and banged the table with my fist and cried, "I do not want that square-root of minus one; take that square-root of minus one away!" This irrational root grew into me as something strange, foreign, terrible; it tortured me; it could not be thought out. It could not be defeated because it was beyond reason. Now that square-root of minus one is here again. I read over what I have written and I clearly see that I was insincere with myself, that I lied to myself in order to avoid seeing that square-root of minus one. My sickness, etc., is all nonsense; _I could go there_. I feel sure that if such a thing had happened a week ago I should have gone without hesitating. Why then am I unable to go now?... Why? Today, for instance, at exactly sixteen-ten I stood before the glittering Glass Wall. Above was the shining, golden, sun-like sign: "Bureau of Guardians." Inside, a long queue of bluish-gray unifs awaiting their turns, faces shining like the oil lamps in an ancient temple. They came to accomplish a great thing: they came to put on the altar of the United State their beloved ones, their friends, their own selves. My whole being craved to join them, yet ... I could not; my feet were as though melted into the glass plates of the sidewalk. I simply stood there looking foolish. "Heh, mathematician! Dreaming?" I shivered. Black eyes varnished with laughter looked at me,--thick negro lips! It was my old friend the poet, R-13, and with him rosy O-. I turned around angrily (I still believe that if they had not appeared I should have entered the Bureau and have torn the square-root of minus one out of my flesh). "Not dreaming at all; if you will, 'standing in adoration'," I retorted quite brusquely. "Oh, certainly, certainly! You, my friend, should never have become a mathematician; you should have become a poet, a great poet! Yes, come over to our trade, to the poets. Heh? If you will, I can arrange it in a jiffy. Heh?" R-13 usually talks very fast: His words run in torrents, his thick lips sprinkle. Every P is a fountain, every "poets" a fountain. "So far I have served knowledge, and I shall continue to serve knowledge." I frowned. I do not like, I do not understand jokes, and R-13 has the bad habit of joking.