Level 7

I was quite sorry to leave the ward this afternoon. It may sound odd, but I really enjoyed being there. The whole business was so comical: a stomach upset by a chocolate toast after a wedding ceremony, and then a ‘honeymoon’ spent in a hospital bed.

I enjoyed the pain too. This may sound downright perverse, but it is true. I enjoyed it because it broke the deadening routine. It made me feel that I was still alive, alive to sensations which were felt by people up there on the surface.

More than that, the pain proved my identity to me in a way that my symbol, X-127m, cannot do. Somebody once said: “I think, therefore I am.” But it seems to me that thinking makes you forget your own personality, it dissolves your individuality in the impersonal universe of spirit. But feeling, feeling an acute pain, tells you that you are. It makes you aware of yourself as nothing else does. There is nothing universal about the feeling of pain; it is the most private of experiences.

Though I am still weak, my state of physical emptiness is a good one and conducive to meditation. Those pills seem to have purged my mind as well as my body. My depression has gone, I feel much more cheerful. I don’t even want to discuss myths with R-747. For the time being, my addiction to that spiritual drug is cured.

This is the first occasion on which I have felt really grateful to P. But for her persistent efforts to get me to marry her, and but for her piece of chocolate, I should still be going round in my black mood.

The pangs of marriage certainly did me good. I only hope it will not be undone by marriage’s other aspects.

MAY 12

I am quite well now. And a proper married man too.

P seemed quite worried about my stomach trouble when we met again yesterday. This was perfectly natural in a newly-wedded woman, and it prompted me to ask her why she had not visited me in the hospital. She said she had been told no visitors were allowed. Apparently the rule is quite inflexible.

I wonder why this should be. I suppose it is considered better to hide sick people away, not only for reasons of hygiene, but to preserve the morale of their healthy friends. It is always depressing to visit a person in the hospital, and if you do not see for yourself how ill a patient is you are more likely to assume that no news (or the vague information which doctors begrudgingly allow you) is good news.

Incidentally P had a touch of indigestion herself, as might have been expected, but it was not enough to stop her working.

I find her more pleasant now. In conversation her tongue is not so sharp. Indeed she talks less altogether.

Our time of privacy is 16.15 to 17.00 hours each day—4.15 to 5.00 in the afternoon. We are lucky in this respect: some people get it at 4.15 a.m. On second thoughts, I suppose it would not make much difference. The working hours of many of the crew—myself included—are scheduled on a 24-hour basis, and down here ‘day’ and ‘night’ mean very little. Regular private meetings with P will enliven my daily routine, which is all to the good, not to mention the other benefits which marriage should bring with it—even on Level 7.

The desire to discuss mythologies with R-747 has not returned. As a matter of fact, I have hardly spoken to her since I came out of the hospital. Yesterday and today I spent my time in the lounge chatting with P. And P actually tried to draw R-747 into the conversation. A strange metamorphosis in our relationship.

MAY 13

Today I have had an interesting talk with X-107 about marriage on Level 7.

I was humming a tune, I think, and my obvious good spirits must have started a train of thought in my roommate’s head. “It seems to work all right even on Level 7,” he remarked.

This rather cryptic statement got no reply and clearly needed elucidation. “The institution of marriage, I mean,” he went on. “You know, I had the gravest misgivings about it. It seemed to me that it should have been abolished altogether.”

“Why so?” I asked. “What about the future of the human race? You wouldn’t like to see Level 7 die out in a generation, would you?”

“Of course not,” X-107 said. “But monogamous marriage isn’t the only way of preserving the species. Free love would have done it just as well. What’s more, it would have been more convenient: there wouldn’t have been the problem of scheduling hours of privacy to fit in with working hours. Nobody pretends that marriage down here is anything more than a means of providing a future generation—there are no private households, no family life—so why preserve the old formalities?”

I agreed that the arrangement was very conservative, but pointed out (as X-107 always used to do) that there must be a good reason for it. Perhaps it was to prevent jealousy, I suggested. That was a sentiment which could be terribly disruptive in the rather claustrophobic atmosphere of Level 7.