And so the answer to my perplexities, which must appear in all its clarity to those who look from above, was finally clear to me: that I too was the subject of a zoological experiment.

I took new interest in the torpedo-fish with their crackling shocks; in the turtles that paced beside yardsticks; in the mice sliced end to end, that their gestation might be viewed.

They were my brethren.

As I parsed Latin sentences, I noted 03-01’s interest in my progress. I knew that behind the forbidden door, he kept his records of what I did. There would be, someday, an article about me in the Philosophical Ephemera of the Novanglian College of Lucidity. My life, now, tended toward that moment.

Revolving my thoughts upon this curious state, I resolved thus: I would not fail 03-01. I would not fail my mother. I would prove the superior excellence of my faculties.

From that day, my studies took on a new intensity.

And I played the violin like a very devil.