"I beg your pardon," she said, "but you looked about you like an inspired mythological god on the seventh day of creation. You look as though you are sure that I, too, was created by you, by no one but you. It is very flattering." All this without a smile, even with a certain degree of respect--(she may know that I am the builder of the _Integral_). In her eyes nevertheless, in her brows, there was a strange irritating X, and I was unable to grasp it, to find an arithmetical expression for it. Somehow I was confused; with a somewhat hazy mind, I tried logically to motivate my laughter. "It was absolutely clear that this contrast, this impassable abyss, between the things of today and of years ago--" "But why impassable?" (What bright, sharp teeth!) "One might throw a bridge over that abyss. Please imagine: a drum battalion, rows,--all this existed before and consequently--" "Oh, yes, it is clear," I exclaimed. It was a remarkable intersection of thoughts. She said almost in the same words the things I wrote down before the walk! Do you understand? Even the thoughts! It is because nobody is _one_, but _one of_. We are all so much alike-- "Are you sure?" I noticed her brows which rose to the temples in an acute angle,--like the sharp corners of an X. Again I was confused, casting a glance to the right, then to the left. To my right--she, slender, abrupt, resistantly flexible like a whip, I-330 (I saw her number now). To my left, O-, totally different, made all of circles with a child-like dimple on her wrist; and at the very end of our row, an unknown he-Number, double-curved like the letter S. We were all so different from one another.... The one to my right, I-330, apparently caught my confused eye, for she said with a sigh, "Yes, alas!" I don't deny that this exclamation was quite in place, but again there was something in her face or in her voice.... With an abruptness unusual for me, I said, "Why 'alas'? Science is developing and if not now, then within fifty or one hundred years--" "Even the noses will--" "Yes, noses!" This time I almost shouted, "Since there is still a reason, no matter what, for envy.... Since my nose is button-like and someone else's is--" "Well your nose is rather classic, as they would say in the ancient days, although your hands--No, no, show me your hands!" I hate to have anyone look at my hands; they are covered with long hair,--a stupid atavism. I stretched out my hand and said as indifferently as I could, "Ape-like." She glanced at my hand, then at my face. "No, a very curious harmony." She weighed me with her eyes as though with scales. The little horns again appeared at the corners of her brows. "He is registered in my name," exclaimed O-90 with a rosy smile.