I was silent. Something foreign was shadowing my face and I was unable to rid myself of it. Suddenly, all shining, light blue, she caught my hand; I felt her lips upon it.... It was for the first time in my life.... It was some ancient caress as yet unknown to me.... And I was so ashamed and it pained me so much that I swiftly, I think even roughly, pulled my hand away. "Listen, you are crazy, it seems.... And anyway you ... what are you happy about? Is it possible that you forget what is ahead of you? If not now, then within a month or two...." Her light went out, her roundness sagged and shrank. And in my heart an unpleasant, even a painful compression, mixed with pity. Our heart is nothing else than an ideal pump: a compression, i.e., a shrinking at the moment of pumping, is a technical absurdity. Hence it is clear how essentially absurd, unnatural and pathological are all these "loves" and "pities," etc., etc., which create that compression.... Silence. To the left the cloudy green glass of the Wall. And just ahead the dark red mass. Those two colors combined, gave me as a resultant what I thought was a splendid idea. "Wait! I know how to save you! I shall save you from.... To see one's own child for a few moments only and then be sent to death! No! You shall be able to bring it up! You shall watch it and see it grow in your arms, and ripen like a fruit...." Her body quivered and she seemed to have chained herself to me. "Do you remember that woman, I-330? That ... of ... of long ago?... Who during that walk?... Well, she is now right here, in the Ancient House. Let us go to her and I assure you that I shall arrange matters at once." I already pictured us, I-330 and I, leading O-90 through the corridors ... then how she would be brought amidst flowers, grass, and leaves.... But O-90 stepped back, the little horns of her rosy crescent trembling and bending downward. "Is she _that same one_?" she asked. "That is...." I was confused for some reason. "Yes, of course ... that very same...." "And you want me to go to _her_, to ask her ... to.... Don't you ever dare to say another word about it!" Leaning over, she walked away.... Then as if she remembered something, she turned around and cried: "I shall die; be it so! And it is none of your business ... what do you care?" Silence. From above pieces of blue towers and walls were falling downward with terrific speed ... they will have perhaps hours or days to fly through the infinite.... Unseen threads were slowly floating through the air, planting themselves upon my face, and it was impossible to brush them off, impossible to rid myself of them. I walked slowly toward the Ancient House and in my heart I felt that absurd, tormenting compression.... RECORD THIRTY The Last Number Galileo's Mistake Would It Not Be Better?