"Mephi? It is from Mephisto. You remember, there on the rock, the figure of the youth? Or, no. I shall explain it to you in your own language and you will understand better: there are two forces in the world, entropy and energy. One leads into blessed quietude, to happy equilibrium, the other to the destruction of equilibrium, to torturingly perpetual motion. Our, or rather your ancestors, the Christians, worshipped entropy like a God. But we are not Christians, we...." At that moment a slight whisper was suddenly heard, a knock at the door, and in rushed that flattened man with the forehead low over his eyes, who several times had brought me notes from I-330. He ran straight to us, stopped, panting like an air-pump, and could say not a word, as he must have been running at top speed. "But tell me! What has happened?" I-330 grasped him by the hand. "They are coming here,--" panted the air-pump, "with guards.... And with them that what's-his-name, the hunchback...." "S-?" "Yes. They are in the house by this time. They'll soon be here. Quick, quick!" "Nonsense, we have time!" I-330 was laughing, cheerful sparks in her eyes. It was either absurd, senseless courage, or else there was something I did not yet understand. "I-, dear, for the sake of the Well-Doer! You must understand that this...." "For the sake of the Well-Doer!" The sharp, triangle-smile. "Well ... well, for my sake, I implore you!" "Oh, yes, I wanted to talk to you about some other matters.... Well, never mind.... We'll talk about them tomorrow." And cheerfully (yes cheerfully) she nodded to me; the other came out for a second from under his forehead's awning and nodded also. I was alone. Quick! To my desk! I opened this manuscript, took the pen so that they should find me at this work which is for the benefit of the United State. Suddenly I felt every hair on my head living, separated, moving: "What if they should read, even one page of these most recently written?" Motionless I sat at the table but everything around me seemed to be moving, as if the less than microscopic movements of the atoms suddenly were magnified millions of times, and I saw the walls trembling, my pen trembling and the letters swinging and fusing together. "To hide them! But where?" Glass all around. "To burn them?" But they would notice the fire through the corridor and in the neighboring room. Besides I felt unable, I felt too weak, to destroy this torturing and perhaps dearest piece of my own self.... Voices from a distance (from the corridor) and steps. I had only time to snatch a handful of pages and put them under me, and then as if soldered to the armchair, every atom of which was quivering, I remained sitting, while the floor under my feet rolled like the deck of a ship, up and down....