"The idea of an impending catastrophe simply didn’t fit into their heads. This catastrophe was approaching too slowly and had been approaching for too long. It was probably because they thought of a catastrophe as something immediate, something instantaneous, as related to some kind of disaster. And they weren’t able and didn’t want to think about the world outside The Administration and its activities. There was The Administration with its research and there was The Forest. The Forest was stronger—but then, The Forest always had been and always would be stronger. Catastrophe, what catastrophe? How could this be a catastrophe? It was just life. They’ll figure it out one day, when the swamp is at their doorsteps, when the underground springs erupt in the middle of their streets and yellow fog hangs over their roofs... Or maybe they won’t realize it even then: they’ll simply say, we can’t live here anymore. And they’ll have to leave and find another place...

And then what? We are the damned, the miserable damned. Or rather, we are the happy damned because we do not know that we’re damned. We are relics who have been condemned to death by objective laws, and helping them means holding up progress—it means putting an obstacle in the way of the front lines of progress, even if only a small one. But what’s their progress to me, thought Candide? It’s not my progress, and the only reason I’m calling it progress is because I can’t find a better word . . . I can’t choose this with my head. I have to choose this with my heart. Objective laws can’t be good or bad; they are outside the bounds of morality. But I’m not outside the bounds of morality!"