See Under by David Grossman (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

energy. In this way, he hoped to allow that high-powered energy to carry human anguish like a super-engine. He predicted that the splitting would explode the drainpipes, the cage, and the entire zoo. Paula: “Jesus and Mary! All of Warsaw, too! ‘This scream will go very far!’ he said.”Kazik: “But why?” Marcus: “So that maybe, a thousand or two thousand years from now, someone will hear it out there in one of the distant worlds of a remote galaxy, someone in the universe will hear it and finally take notice, because maybe they have forgotten us … maybe they have been a little negligent …” Here again it should be noted that though the idea may sound entirely preposterous, it is nevertheless reminiscent of other ideas in human history, such as the view that the giant pyramids of the Mayas in Central America were constructed in order to draw the attention of dwellers in distant worlds. Sergei himself believed implicitly in the future outcome of his venture. Paula was surprised and frightened when he lurched out at her from the bushes one night, waving a pageful of spidery calculations, and begged her pardon in advance for any damage the experiment might inflict on the zoo. Paula: “Nu, and later when it was time for the experiment to start, you can imagine, child, we were all pretty historical ourselves.” Kazik: “And-then-what-happened?”

It should be pointed out that Kazik had listened to the story in wide-eyed amazement. Though he understood very little of what was being said, he sensed that the ARTISTS [q.v.] were stifling sighs deep in their bosoms. One could see the vitiated radiance of YOUTH [q.v.] in his eyes. Kazik: “And-then-what-happened-then-what-happened?” Marcus: “Something terrible happened. The worst that could happen. One fine day Pan Professor Sergei finished building his maze, and we gathered around the cage and waited. We were filled with anticipation. This was, dear Kazik, what you might call a prodigy! After all, it wasn’t every day somebody’s dream came true! And the professor appeared from one of his hiding places, poor man, wearing a jacket—a bit worse for wear, it is true—which I had lent him, and a red rose in his lapel. For a moment he gazed at us with his usual timorous expression. Perhaps he was thinking he deserved a more discriminating audience, for God help us, we did look like derelicts …” Sergei stood up, stared into the air with his ears pricked, hoping to hear a fanfare, perhaps, and then shook himself, waved his hand dismissively, impatiently, pulled the metal lid off one of the tubes leading to the maze, and, with a little bow, invited Aaron Marcus to scream into the tube. Marcus was chosen because the learned apothecary had devoted all his energies for some years now to special research [see Under: FEELINGS] which involved the classifying, tracing, and mapping of nuances in human feeling andthe plotting of the voids in man’s feeling atmosphere. Then, three months before the public demonstration of “the scream” was to take place, Sergei had shyly approached Marcus and asked for his assistance. Naturally he didn’t tell him anything about the purpose behind the monstrous tin construction in the pig cage, and also refused to reveal any of his physico-mechanical secrets. He wanted one thing only: to make use of Aaron Marcus’s monumental feeling skills for his experiment. Marcus: “Nu, yes, there’s no need to go into that now; the main thing is that at the inventor’s request I managed to locate the subtlest nuance, the purest octave of human anguish, the worst possible anguish, the cry of the naked soul, and to this I added, again at the good Sergei’s request, a subtle note of defiance and a light ring of protest, and for weeks I walked around with the nuance resounding in me, rehearsing it, learning it in depth. The feeling was razor-sharp, the essence of the scream.” In order to reach that rarefied sound, the artist of feeling had labored like a sculptor, chiseling away at the layers of stone that conceal the figure there. He used his mighty talent to locate and draw out the finest cord, the ultimate string, stretched tautly in all the artists surrounding him. Wasserman: “The string used by every man alive to loose his only arrow. After this, Marcus went into seclusion for several weeks to prepare himself like a musician.”

Marcus: “And when the moment came at last, and Professor Sergei removed the stopper from the tube—what excitement, Kazik! How we trembled! I pressed my mouth to the opening—no! My heart I pressed to it! Nu, and then, I screamed.”

“What-happened-then-what-happened?” asked Kazik, but Neigel asked with him, and the artists replied in an uproar. Fried: “What happened? It was terrible! My hair stood on end when I heard Marcus scream!” Paula: “A birch tree at the far end of the zoo fell—crash!—as though lightning had struck it! In the morning we found the pulp burned to ashes.” Otto: “Rabbits sucked their fetuses back into the womb!” Munin: “And snakes flew out of their holes—pheww!” [Editorial comment: None of the artists tells here of the anguish and despair they suffered personally on hearing the scream.] Professor Sergei, any vestige of sanity seemingly shattered by the scream, hurriedly stopped the tube, and with wobbly knees and a trembling voice, he yelled at the artists to run for their lives and find shelter, though there was no shelter! Marcus: “Nu, and my scream started running through the tin maze.Did I say run? It galloped! Did I say gallop? It flew!” Otto: “I hid behind my pavilion, and from there I could hear it running through the tubes.” Marcus: “Crashing with all its might, colliding into its own echoes, screeching, exploding.” Paula: “It was scary! My heart dipped down to my undies, pardon.” Munin: “Whistling like an evil wind, Lilith flying out of hell! The Angel Rehatiel on wild horses!” Otto: “Everything, but everything began to shake, the cage, the zoo,