“No, but I wanted to. I swear by the Well-Doer, I wanted to!”

For a second I was bored through by the gray, cold, drill-eyes. I don’t know whether he believed that what I said was the truth (almost!), or whether he had some secret reason for sparing me for a while, but he wrote a short note, handed it to one of those who had held me and again I was free. That is, I was again included in the orderly, endless, Assyrian rows of Numbers.

The quadrangle, the freckled face and the temple with the map of blue veinlets disappeared forever around the corner. We walked again⁠—a million-headed body; and in each one of us resided that humble joyfulness with which in all probability molecules, atoms and phagocytes live.

In the ancient days the Christians understood this feeling; they are our only (though very imperfect) direct forerunners. The greatness of the “Church of the United Flock” was known to them. They knew that resignation is virtue, and pride⁠—a vice; that “We” is from God, “I” from the devil.