There in the strange corridor lighted by the dotted line of dim little electric lamps ... or no, no, later, when we had already reached one of the nooks in the courtyard of the Ancient House, she said, "Day-after-tomorrow." That "day-after-tomorrow" is today. And everything seems to have wings and to fly; the day flies; and our _Integral_ too already has wings. We finished placing the motor and tried it out today, without switching it in. What magnificent, powerful salvos! Each of them sounded for me like a salute in honor of _her_, the only one,--in honor of today! At the time of the first explosion about a dozen loafing Numbers from the docks stood near the main tube--and nothing was left of them save a few crumbs and a little soot. With pride I write down now that this occurrence did not disturb the rhythm of our work even for a second. Not a man shrank. We and our lathes continued our rectilinear or curved motions with the same sparkling and polished precision as before, as if nothing had happened. As a matter of fact, what did happen? A dozen Numbers represent hardly one hundred millionth part of the United State. For practical consideration, that is but an infinitesimal of the third order. That _pity_, a result of arithmetical ignorance, was known to the ancients; to us it seems absurd. It seems droll to me also, that yesterday I was thinking, even relating in these pages about a gray blot! All that was only the "softening of the surface" which is normally as hard as diamond, like our walls. (There is an ancient saying: "Shooting beans at a stone wall--") Sixteen o'clock. I did not go for the supplementary walk; who knows, she might come now, when the sun is so noisily bright. I am almost the only one in his room. Through the walls full of sunshine I see for a distance to the right and to the left and below strings of other rooms, repeating each other as if in a mirror, hanging in the air and empty. Only on the bluish stairway, striped by the golden ink of the sun, is seen rising a thin, gray shadow. Already I hear steps, and I see through the door and I feel a smile pasted to my face like a plaster. But it passed to another stairway and down. The click of the switchboard! I threw myself to that little white slit and ... an unfamiliar male Number! (A consonant means a male Number.) The elevator groaned and stopped. A big, slovenly, slanting forehead stood before me, and the eyes ... They impressed me strangely; it seemed as if the man talked with his eyes which were deep under the forehead. "Here is a letter from her, for you." (From under the awning of that forehead.) "She asked that everything ... as requested in the letter ... without fail." This too, from under the forehead, from under the awning, and he turned, looked about. "No, there is nobody, nobody. Quickly! the letter!" He put the letter in my hand and went out without a word.