I see before me, over a draught, my hand with the counter and the logarithmic dial at the figure 15.
“Fifteen tons. But you’d better take … yes, better take a thousand.”
I said that because I know that tomorrow. … I noticed that my hands and the dial began to tremble.
“A thousand! What do you need such a lot for? That would last a week! No, more than a week!”
“Well, nobody knows. …”
I do know. …
The wind whistled, the air seemed to be stuffed to the limit with something invisible. I had difficulty in breathing, difficulty in walking, and with difficulty, slowly but without stopping for a second the hand of the Accumulating Tower was crawling, at the end of the avenue. The peak of the Tower reached into the very clouds;—dull, blue, groaning in a subdued way, sucking electricity from the clouds. The tubes of the Musical Tower resounded.
As always—four abreast. But the rows did not seem as firm as usual; they were swinging, bending more and more, perhaps because of the wind. There! They seemed to have stumbled upon something at the corner, and they drew back and stopped, congealed, a close mass, a clot, breathing rapidly; at once all had stretched their necks like geese.
“Look! No look, look—there, quick!”
“ They? Are those they ?”
“Ah, never! Never! I’d rather put my head straight into the Machine. …”
“Silence! Are you crazy?”