If only I dared to look straight into his eyes as formerly! Straight and devotedly, and think: "Here I am, my whole self! Take me!" But now I did not dare. I had to make an effort to raise my hand, as if my joints were rusty. A whisper of millions of hands. Someone's subdued "Ah!" and I felt something was coming, falling heavily, but I could not understand what it was, and I did not have the strength or courage to take a look.... "Those opposed?"... This was always the most magnificent moment of our celebration: all would remain sitting motionless, joyfully bowing their heads under the salutary yoke of that Number of Numbers. But now, to my horror again I heard a rustle; light as a sigh, yet it was more distinct even than the brass tube of the Hymn. Thus the last sigh in a man's life, around him people with their faces pale and with drops of cold sweat upon their foreheads.... I lifted my eyes and.... It took one hundredth of a second only; I saw thousands of hands arise "opposed" and fall back. I saw the pale cross-marked face of I-330 and her lifted hand. Darkness came upon my eyes. Another hundredth of a second, silence. Quiet. The pulse. Then, as if at the sign of some mad conductor, from all the stands rattling, shouting, a whirlwind of unifs lifted by the rush, the perplexed figures of the Guardians running to and fro. Someone's heels in the air near my eyes and close to those heels someone's wide-open mouth tearing itself by an inaudible scream. For some reason this picture remains particularly distinct in my memory: thousands of mouths noiselessly yelling as if on the screen of a monstrous cinema. Also as if on a screen, somewhere below at a distance, for a second--O-90, pressed against the wall in a passage, her lips white, defending her abdomen with her crossed arms. She disappeared as if washed away by a wave, or else I simply forgot her because.... This not on the screen any more but within me, within my compressed heart, within the rapidly pulsating temples; over my head, somewhat to the left, R-13 suddenly jumped upon a bench, all sprinkling, red, rabid. In his arms was I-330, pale, her unif torn from shoulder to breast, red blood on white. She firmly held him round the neck, and he with huge leaps from bench to bench, repellent and agile, like a gorilla, was carrying her away upward. As if it were in a fire of ancient days, everything became red around me. Only one thing in my head: to jump after them, to catch them. At this moment I cannot explain to myself the source of that strength within me, but like a battering-ram I broke through the crowd, over somebody's shoulders, over a bench and I was there in a moment and caught R-13 by the collar: "Don't you dare! Don't you dare, I say! Immediately--" Fortunately no one could hear my voice, as everyone was shouting and running.