Level 7

That was the thought that bothered me most. It made me nearly mad, the idea that I would never see sunshine again. Level 7 was worse than a jail, I thought, because even prisoners walked around a yard now and then, in the sunshine. I wanted to break out, to go up. At that moment I did not care how dangerous life on top might be. I wanted to live there and die there, under the sun, and not to decay slowly down in this miserable hole.

My mind was not coolly analysing the situation now, but boiling with hectic plans for escape. How could I get out? I had to get out. Then I remembered the escalator which moved only one way—down. At the head of it had been the revolving door which allowed no return. And beyond that was the lift-shaft, which must have been sealed off if what the loudspeaker had said was true. Even if I were able to race up those swiftly moving stairs and batter down the door, I would have no way of operating the lift. I could push a button to destroy the world, but there was no button I could push to summon that lift.

My frustration and despair had reached such a pitch that I was finding it impossible to lie still any longer. I had to get up and do something, anything to keep me busy. But what could I do? There were no books to read. I could not write a letter to anyone.

No, but I could write! I remembered the writing materials I had seen in the drawer. (A good psychological move on someone’s part, that was.) I could write just for myself—a sort of diary of thoughts, feelings, impressions, things I did. And one day—who knows?—my diary might be discovered and published on the surface of the earth, up there in the sunshine. Part of me, my spirit, might one day see daylight, might be warmed by the sun!

I knew I was cheating myself. I knew that the chances of my diary’s appearance up on the earth were remote. Even if the sun did shine on it one day, what good was that to me here and now? Still, I liked the illusion. It was comforting, even exciting. So I started writing this diary, and now whenever I sit down to report on another day, I have that same feeling of comfort and excitement.

I shall go on writing this diary as long as I live. For this is the only way in which I can feel the sun.

April 27.

X-127.

MARCH 21

Now I begin to understand the meaning of the problem ‘to be or not to be’. Till now I only thought of being somebody. Earlier today I enjoyed the thrill of becoming a major, of being somebody more exalted than I was yesterday. ‘To be or not to be’ seemed to me a vague, meaningless sort of question, good for philosophers or writers but of no interest to ordinary practical people. ‘I am’ was a simple fact, beyond any dispute just because it was a fact; whereas what I was might have been a problem, one of practical significance, because my rank, my social level, my health, any number of things about me were liable to change.

But the more I think about it, the more this idea of being, pure being, loses its simple form and collects around it other ideas. It begins to mean breathing fresh air, walking in the sunshine, and in the rain too—enjoying the sensation of existence.

Well then, is life down here being—or is it not-being? Is not Level 7 a sort of Hades or Sheol where being is dimmed to half-being, at the best? I can breathe, but is this fresh air? I can walk, but I cannot go for a walk. As for sunshine—I had better forget it. I feel that I feel, but I don’t really—not in the spontaneous way I used to up there.

Am I condemned to half-be for the rest of my life? To half-be a major, to be sure. But I would rather revert to private and be. I would prefer to be an absolute nobody than to half-be what I am.

It is very odd that I had to be brought down into the depths of the earth in order to discover the meaning of half a line of Shakespeare. There must have been a philosopher, a Hamlet lurking in me all the time, and I never suspected it. I did not once ponder about the meaning of being, as long as I was. Now, when my life can hardly qualify as being, I begin to understand….

Understand what? The meaning of being? Nonsense, nobody knows the meaning of that. But now at least I understand the meaninglessness of being somebody. And I realise the significance of being, without knowing what being is. My soul—what is left of it—cries: “To be, to be!”

But the loudspeaker sounds: “Attention please, attention.”

MARCH 22