As I crossed the avenue I turned around. Here and there in the huge mass of glass penetrated by sunshine there were grayish-blue squares, the opaque squares of lowered curtains,--the squares of rhythmic, Taylorized happiness. On the seventh floor I found R-13's square. The curtains were already lowered. Dear O-.... Dear R-.... He also has (I do not know why I write this "also," but I write as it comes from my pen), he too has something which is not entirely clear in him. Yet I, he and O-, we are a triangle; I confess, not an isosceles triangle but a triangle nevertheless. We, to speak in the language of our ancestors (perhaps to you, my planetary readers, this is the more comprehensible language) we are a family. And one feels so good at times, when one is able for a short while, at least, to close oneself within a firm triangle, to close oneself away from anything that.... RECORD NINE Liturgy Iambus The Cast-Iron Hand A solemn bright day. On such days one forgets one's weaknesses, inexactitudes, illnesses, and everything is crystalline and imperturbable like our new glass.... The Plaza of the Cube. Sixty-six imposing concentric circles--stands. Sixty-six rows of quiet serene faces. Eyes reflecting the shining of the sky,--or perhaps it is the shining of the United State. Red like blood, are the flowers--the lips of the women. Like soft garlands the faces of the children in the first rows, nearest the place of action. Profound, austere, gothic silence. To judge by the descriptions which reach us from the ancients, they felt somewhat like this during their "Church services," but they served their nonsensical unknown god; we serve our rational god, whom we most thoroughly know. Their god gave them nothing but eternal, torturing seeking; our god gives us absolute truth, that is, he has rid us of any kind of doubt. Their god did not invent anything cleverer than sacrificing oneself, nobody knows what for; we bring to our god, The United State, a quiet, rational, carefully thought-out sacrifice. Yes, it was a solemn liturgy for the United State, a reminiscence of the great days, years, of the Two Hundred Years' War,--a magnificent celebration of the victory of _all_ over _one_, of the _sum_ over the individual! That _one_ stood on the steps of the Cube which was filled with sunlight. A white, no not even white, but already colorless glass face, lips of glass. And only the eyes--thirsty, swallowing, black holes leading into that dreadful world from which he was only a few minutes away. The golden badge with the number already had been taken off. His hands were tied with a red ribbon. (A symbol of ancient custom. The explanation of it is that in the old times when this sort of thing was not done in the name of the United State, the convicted naturally considered that they had the right to resist, hence their hands were usually bound with chains.)