gasses into the universal space, and the Integral will soar forward and higher—like a flaming Tamerlane of happiness! I watched how the workers, true to the Taylor system, would bend down, then unbend and turn around swiftly and rhythmically like levers of an enormous engine. In their hands they held glittering glass pipes which emitted bluish streaks of flame; the glass walls were being cut into with flame; with flame there were being welded the angles, the ribs, the bars. I watched the monstrous glass cranes easily rolling over the glass rails; like the workers themselves they would obediently turn, bend down and bring their loads inward into the bowels of the Integral . All seemed one, humanized machine and mechanized humans. It was the most magnificent, the most stirring beauty, harmony, music!
Quick! Down! To them, and with them! And I descended and mingled with them, fused with their mass, caught in the rhythm of steel and glass. Their movements were measured, tense and round. Their cheeks were colored with health, their mirror-like foreheads not clouded by the insanity of thinking. I was floating upon a mirror-like sea. I was reposing. … Suddenly one of them turned toward me his carefree face.
“Well, better today?”
“What better?”
“You were not here yesterday. And we thought something serious. …” His forehead was shining; a childish and innocent smile.
My blood rushed to my face. No, I could not lie, facing those eyes. I remained silent; I was drowning. … Above, the shiny round white porcelain face appeared in the hatchway.
“Eh! D-503 ! Come up here! Something is wrong with a frame and brackets here, and …”