“Then why did you torture me? Why would you not come? Why did you send me the pink check and make me—?”
“Perhaps I wanted to test you. Perhaps I must be sure that you will do anything I wish, that you are completely mine.”
“Yes, completely.”
She took my face, my whole self, between her palms, lifted my head:
“And how about ‘It is the duty of every honest Number’? Eh?”
Sweet, sharp, white teeth—a smile. In the open cup of the armchair she was like a bee—sting and honey combined.
Yes, duty. … I turned over in my mind the pages of my records; indeed there is not a thought about the fact that strictly speaking I should. …
I was silent. Exaltedly (and probably stupidly) I smiled, looking into the pupils of her eyes. I followed first one eye and then the other and in each of them I saw myself, a millimetric self imprisoned in those tiny rainbow cells. Then again the lips and the sweet pain of blooming.
In each Number of the United State there is an unseen metronome which tick-tocks silently; without looking at the clock we know exactly the time of day within five minutes. But now my metronome had stopped and I did not know how much time had passed. In fright I grasped my badge with its clock from under the pillow. Glory be to the Well-Doer! I had twenty minutes more! But those minutes were such tiny, short ones! They ran! And I wanted to tell her so many things. I wanted to tell her all about myself; about the letter from O- and about that terrible evening when I gave her a child; and for some reason also about my childhood, about our mathematician Plappa and about the square-root of minus one; and how, when I attended the glorification on the Day of Unanimity for the first time in my life, I wept bitterly because there was an ink-stain on my unif—on such a holy day!