"No, listen," I said. "Imagine you are in an ancient aeroplane. The altimeter shows 5000 meters. A wing breaks; you are dashing down like.... And on the way you calculate: 'Tomorrow from twelve to two ... from two to six ... and dinner at five!' Would it not be absurd?" The little blue flowers began to move and bulge out. What if I were made of glass and he could have seen what was going on within me at that moment? If he knew that some three or four hours later.... RECORD TWENTY-SEVEN No Headings. It Is Impossible! I was alone in the endless corridors. In those same corridors.... A mute, concrete sky. Water was dripping somewhere upon a stone. The familiar heavy opaque door,--and the subdued noise from behind it. She said she would come out at sixteen sharp. It was already five minutes, then ten, then fifteen past sixteen. No one appeared. For a second I was my former self, horrified at the thought that the door might open. "Five minutes more, and if she does not come out...." Water was dripping somewhere upon a stone. No one about. With melancholy pleasure I felt: "saved," and slowly I turned and walked back along the corridor. The trembling dots of the small lamps on the ceiling became dimmer and dimmer. Suddenly a quick rattle of a door behind me. Quick steps, softly echoing from the ceiling and the walls. It was she, light as a bird, panting somewhat from running. "I knew you would be here, you would come! I knew you,--you...." The spears of her eyelashes moved apart to let me in and ... how can I describe what effect that ancient, absurd and wonderful rite has upon me when her lips touch mine? Can I find a formula to express that whirlwind which sweeps out of my soul everything, everything save her? Yes, yes from my _soul_. You may laugh at me if you will. She made an effort to raise her eyelids and her slow words too came with an effort: "No. Now we must go." The door opened. Old, worn steps. An unbearably multicolored noise, whistling and light.... * * * * * Twenty-four hours have passed since then and everything seems to have settled in me, yet it is most difficult for me to find words for even an approximate description.... It is as though a bomb had exploded in my head.... Open mouths, wings, shouts, leaves, words, stones, all these one after another in a heap.... I remember my first thought was: "Fast--back!" For it was clear to me that while I was waiting there in the corridors, _they_ somehow had blasted and destroyed the Green Wall, and from behind it everything rushed in and splashed over our city which until then had been kept clean of that lower world. I must have said something of this sort to I-330. She laughed. "No, we have simply come out _beyond the Green Wall_." Then I opened my eyes, and close to me, actually, I saw those very things which until then not a single living Number had ever seen otherwise than depreciated a thousand times, dimmed and hazy through the cloudy glass of the Wall.