The world was renovated; it became like steel—a sun of steel, trees of steel, men of steel. Suddenly an insane man, “Unchained the fire and set it free,” and again the world had perished. … Unfortunately I have a bad memory for poetry, but one thing I am sure of: one could not choose more instructive or more beautiful parables.
Another slow, heavy gesture of the cast-iron hand and another poet appeared on the steps of the Cube. I stood up! Impossible! But … thick negro lips—it was he. Why did he not tell me that he was to be invested with such high. … His lips trembled; they were gray. Oh, I certainly understood; to be face to face with the Well-Doer, face to face with the hosts of Guardians! Yet one should not allow oneself to be so upset.
Swift sharp verses like an axe. … They told about an unheard-of crime, about sacrilegious poems in which the Well-Doer was called. … But no, I do not dare to repeat. …
R-13 was pale when he finished, and looking at no one (I did not expect such bashfulness of him) he descended and sat down. For an infinitesimal fraction of a second I saw right beside him somebody’s face—a sharp, black triangle—and instantly I lost it; my eyes, thousands of eyes, were directed upward toward the Machine. Then—again the superhuman, cast-iron, gesture of the hand.
Swayed by an unknown wind the criminal moved; one step … one more, … then the last step in his life. His face was turned to the sky, his head thrown backward—he was on his last.— … Heavy, stony like fate, the Well-Doer went around the machine, put his enormous hand on the lever. … Not a whisper, not a breath around; all eyes were upon that hand. … What crushing, scorching power one must feel to be the tool, to be the resultant of hundreds of thousands of wills! How great his lot!
Another second. The hand moved down, switching in the current. The lightning-sharp blade of the electric ray. … A faint crack like a shiver, in the tubes of the Machine. …