I could not; my feet were as though melted into the glass plates of the sidewalk. I simply stood there looking foolish.
“Heh, mathematician! Dreaming?”
I shivered. Black eyes varnished with laughter looked at me—thick negro lips! It was my old friend the poet, R-13 , and with him rosy O- . I turned around angrily (I still believe that if they had not appeared I should have entered the Bureau and have torn the square-root of minus one out of my flesh).
“Not dreaming at all; if you will, ‘standing in adoration,’ ” I retorted quite brusquely.
“Oh, certainly, certainly! You, my friend, should never have become a mathematician; you should have become a poet, a great poet! Yes, come over to our trade, to the poets. Heh? If you will, I can arrange it in a jiffy. Heh?”
R-13 usually talks very fast: His words run in torrents, his thick lips sprinkle. Every p is a fountain, every “poets” a fountain.
“So far I have served knowledge, and I shall continue to serve knowledge.”
I frowned. I do not like, I do not understand jokes, and R-13 has the bad habit of joking.
“Heh, to the deuce with knowledge. Your much-heralded knowledge is but a form of cowardice. It is a fact! Yes, you want to encircle the infinite with a wall and you fear to cast a glance behind the wall. Yes, sir! And if ever you should glance beyond the wall you would be dazzled and close your eyes—yes—”
“Walls are the foundation of every human—” I began.