In Hot Pursuit of Happiness

Contents · 121 pages

1. 
   page 1 · act I

   Cold open

   Establish Trurl arriving at Klapaucius's study; melancholic, weighed by failure.
2. 
   page 2 · act I

   Entering, "Please, frivolity…"

   Trurl deflects pleasantries; Klapaucius rises from his reading chair.
3. 
   page 3 · act I

   Sweep of trophies; the long indictment

   Trurl gestures at the wall of medals; bitter pride curdling into self-recrimination.
4. 
   page 4 · act I

   "A serious charge"

   Trurl finishes his indictment; Klapaucius interrupts with the first warning.
5. 
   page 5 · act I

   Such noble enterprises invariably end in tragedy

   The warning unspools across three measured beats; Klapaucius recalls Bonhomius.
6. 
   page 6 · act I

   "Content himself!" — Trurl's counter-proposal

   Trurl snorts at the warning and proposes constructing new beings whose function is to be happy.
7. 
   page 7 · act I

   Klapaucius's prudential warning

   Klapaucius admits he too has entertained the notion, but raises difficult questions. Pacing slows for the philosophical exchange.
8. 
   page 8 · act I ¶

   Mother Nature — silhouette

   Trurl's anger at Mother Nature lands as a quiet utterance into a vast indifferent sky; Klapaucius is absent — the reader feels the absence.
9. 
   page 9 · act I

   Klap–Trurl opening volley — Klap's trap lands

   ¶9-11: Klap and Trurl's rapid-fire opening argument; ends on Klap's 'Really, you talk nonsense, Trurl!'.
10. 
    page 10 · act I

    The correction — Klap's victims-of-the-past argument

    ¶12-13: Trurl's retort ('do nothing?') meets Klap's patient correction — past victims cannot be compensated by future happiness. Three measured beats; the back-and-forth slows; the philosophical stakes deepen before Trurl's ¶14 eruption on the next page.
11. 
    page 11 · act I

    Trurl's prophecy — "But it WILL!"

    ¶14: Trurl erupts. The shout. The concession. The PROPHECY of the future-peoples honoring him. The return to grounded speech. The closer 'Now do you understand?' — the act's emotional climax of the opening philosophical exchange.
12. 
    page 12 · act I

    Beneath the constellation of the Southern Cross

    Klapaucius begins the parable of King Troglodyne. The study wall dissolves into cosmic starscape behind him as he settles into the telling; the reader's eye flows from the storytelling pose, down to the named constellation, then to the bleak kingdom under it.
13. 
    page 13 · act I

    The Troglodyne parable continues

    The parable visualized: Troglodyne in his element, then his encounter with Klapaucius where his power inverts into fear. The doctrine gets written; Trurl's frown deepens as he hears the King is pleased with his own role; the villagers stand bent under the gallows.
14. 
    page 14 · act I

    The parable's punchline

    Klapaucius lands the killing blow: by Trurl's own logic, his future happy beings would owe their gratitude to Troglodyne and others of his kind. The plateau, seen from above, has filled with vacant-smiling monuments where the gallows once stood — the doctrine's logical end.
15. 
    page 15 · act I

    And you would be its savior?

    ¶16-17: Trurl recoils from the Troglodyne parable as cynical and malicious; Klap delivers his patient injunction — 'Try not to perfect the world in one fell swoop.' The Act-I argument reaches its peak; Trurl's mitt clenches; the next page (p016) carries Klap's dark prophecy of the unpleasant choice.
16. 
    page 16 · act I

    The unpleasant choice — Klap's prophecy

    ¶17 climax: Klap's dark prophecy of the moral choice Trurl will face. Future-Trurl frozen between two opposed mobs: happy beings cowering on one side, imperfect neighbours mid-cut-down on the other. The third Act-I prophecy splash — completing the visual trilogy of dark futures (Trurl's vision on p011, Troglodyne's plateau on p014, Klap's unpleasant-choice here).
17. 
    page 17 · act II

    Trurl jumps up

    Trurl springs to his feet in fury but checks the impulse: knocking Klapaucius down would not be an auspicious beginning for the Age of Absolute Happiness. The first page of Act II — the resolve crystallizes.
18. 
    page 18 · act II

    Farewell

    Trurl's icy farewell: he hurls his rhetorical declaration at the doorway, Klapaucius offers an ironic salute, and Trurl marches out of the tower onto the dark plateau under the cosmos he means to amend.
19. 
    page 19 · act II

    Returning home, embarrassed

    Trurl realizes he has no plan. He trudges home across the plateau, stands in his empty workshop facing a blank notebook, and begins the cram: an enormous pile of leather-bound books devoured at incredible speed.
20. 
    page 20 · act II

    Eight hundred cartridges

    Books are too slow. Trurl hauls up eight hundred memory cartridges from the cellar — mercuric, plumbic, ferromagnetic, cryonic — and wires them directly into his head. The download begins.
21. 
    page 21 · act II

    Things are a great deal worse than I imagined

    The cyclonic download ends. Trurl, rocked head to toe by the four-trillion-bit jolt, recovers his composure — deep breath, wiped brow, legs steadied — and then delivers the wry shout that names the scope of the project he's just absorbed.
22. 
    page 22 · act III

    Sharpening pencils, arranging inkwells

    Trurl procrastinates. Four panels of quiet small tasks — the constructor's version of staring at a blank page. Pacing-slowdown that opens Act III.
23. 
    page 23 · act III

    I shall have to acquaint myself with the antiquated work of the ancients

    Trurl resigns himself to reading the crusty old philosophers — a chore he always put off, but now necessary, if only to ward off Klapaucius. The procrastination has produced its own counter-decision.
24. 
    page 24 · act III

    Late-night soliloquy

    Trurl, surrounded by tossed volumes, paces his lit workshop in the small hours and delivers a chained soliloquy: the cradle of life, the blob, the evolution of teeth and intelligence — speaking aloud to no one as he reasons his way toward the question of philosophy itself.
25. 
    page 25 · act III

    Trurl's Universal Law

    Trurl articulates his Universal Law on a chalkboard: each creature postulates an Ideal corresponding to its own defect — fish picture paradise on land, the legged invent angels with wings. The diagram triumphant, then the resolve to begin building.
26. 
    page 26 · act III

    Building the Contemplator

    Trurl rolls up his sleeves and in three days builds the Ecstatic Contemplator of Existence — four process panels of brass-and-spark construction, then the reveal: HEDONS switched on, swaying with delight, the golden pointer trembling toward bliss.
27. 
    page 27 · act III

    Calibrating hedons

    Trurl defines the unit of bliss: one hed equals the joy of removing a nail from a boot after walking four miles. He calibrates the dial, the Contemplator registers 11.9 heds per stained-patch-second admiring his apron, his confidence restored.
28. 
    page 28 · act III

    Kilohed, megahed, and the errand robot

    Trurl tests the Contemplator's precision with classical benchmarks: the elders beholding Susanna at her bath (1 kilohed), the reprieved condemned at the gallows (1 megahed). Then sends an errand-robot scurrying off with a wax-sealed note for Klapaucius.
29. 
    page 29 · act III

    Klapaucius arrives

    Klapaucius arrives at the workshop, brushing dust off his mesh mantle. Trurl gestures proudly at the Contemplator. The two regard each other, and Klapaucius — finger to chin — raises a critical antenna.
30. 
    page 30 · act III

    What is it? — A happy being

    The demo opens. Klap asks what the machine is and what it does; Trurl introduces HEDONS as a happy being / Ecstatic Contemplator of Existence; Klap's slit-eye narrows in dry skepticism between each answer.
31. 
    page 31 · act III

    Correct! — the demo continues

    Trurl insists 'Correct!' to Klap's needling. Klap then recognizes the dial as a felicitometer — Trurl confirms with a faltering 'Yes...'. Klap begins the test: hauls out an ordinary brick, then a curled dead fly, then an old shoe, then a chipped mug — and HEDONS rapturously delights at every single object on the lab stage. The dial pegs. Trurl's confidence cracks.
32. 
    page 32 · act II

    The trap — Klap's killing question

    ¶41-43: Klap delivers the killing question (units of bliss from a man beaten for 300 hours, then braining his attacker). Trurl ENTHUSIASTICALLY starts calculating — falling straight into the trap. Klap erupts in laughter, then delivers his parting verdict: 'You took Goodness as your guiding principle? Off to a flying start!' and exits. The catastrophe of HEDONS.
33. 
    page 33 · act II

    Crushed — "I should have known!"

    ¶44-46: Klap departs. Trurl is left totally crushed, alone with HEDONS still serenely 'oh'-ing through the now-closed closet door. 'I should have known! I should have seen it!' The collapse of the first attempt. Trurl sits at his empty desk, gathers himself in silence before the soliloquy on the next page.
34. 
    page 34 · act II

    What a fool I was — the soliloquy

    ¶47: Trurl's rant at the empty desk. Six beats: the realization-shout, the dismissive aside, the denial-slap, the counting-distinction, THE PIVOT ('Wait — what is Evil?'), the resolution-reach. Architecture: 6-panel locked-frame grid — only expression and gesture vary. The soliloquy GENERATES the next 8 days of study (p035, the time-passes grid that faces this page).
35. 
    page 35 · act IV

    Eight days and nights

    Trurl sits motionless in his chair for eight days. Light rotates around him through the workshop window — day, night, day, night, four full cycles. Dust accumulates on his shoulders and antennae across the eight panels. By panel 8 a spider-web has bridged his left antenna to the chair-back. The IDENTITY of framing IS the joke.
36. 
    page 36 · act IV ¶

    Good will ≠ Happiness

    Trurl snaps back to life. He springs from the chair (dust still raining off his shoulders), strides to a blackboard in the lab, and writes the new equation that overturns his old theory: 'GOOD WILL ≠ HAPPINESS'. The conscience-housing thought-experiment leads him to a fresh approach: build happy individuals directly. (part 1/2) [merged 036+037: full-page architecture; the equation panel + Trurl-explains-it diptych now share the page with the marginalia.]
37. 
    page 37 · act IV

    Suppose each and every individual

    Klap returns to inspect the new approach. Trurl walks him through it — a society in which each individual is intrinsically happy, sings and leaps from morning till night. He points at the prototype on the workbench: a small mechanical citizen with a painted-on smile. Klap listens, finger to chin.
38. 
    page 38 · act IV

    Klap's first test

    Klap produces a small, equally baroque mechanical citizen from a fold of his mantle. He turns the question on Trurl: can these happy beings also be SAD? Trurl, indignant, insists they cannot. Klap then narrows further, rephrasing — do they only jump around plump and rosy and shout in unison they are positively thrilled? The trap is set.
39. 
    page 39 · act IV

    The streetcar — what is Good?

    Klap stays silent, refusing to praise. Trurl, peevish at the lack of praise, defends his design as 'happiness, not spectacle.' Klap counter-attacks with the philosophical thesis of the entire chapter: if they cannot be Evil, their Good is mere mechanism — like a streetcar that doesn't run you down only because it hasn't jumped its track. Real Good belongs to one able to brood, to sob, to do his fellow in, yet who voluntarily refrains. These citizens, Klap concludes, are puppets — a mockery of the ideals Trurl set out to embody. Trurl is stunned. (part 1/2) Merged with p041: peevish setup → ghost-streetcar vision → KLAP THESIS HERO (the moral of the chapter) → Trurl-stunned closer. Marginalia tomb dissolved; ¶58 predicate now a balloon on the hero panel.
40. 
    page 40 · act IV

    The test escalates

    Klap strikes the smiling citizen — full in the face. The painted-on smile is unbroken; the citizen reports it is HAPPY. Klap strikes again, harder. The citizen, splayed on the floor with limbs at improbable angles and the smile still fixed, declares things couldn't be better. The empirical refutation of Trurl's theory, delivered as fast comic-strip slapstick. (part 1/2) Merged with p043: 5-beat comic-strip punch sequence on one page — Klap says "We shall see" → first punch → citizen smiles → second punch → splayed climax.
41. 
    page 41 · act IV

    There you are

    Klap delivers the final dismissive verdict, dusts his mitts, and leaves without another word. Trurl alone in the lab with the still-smiling row of citizens — the long humiliation begins. The first beat of the dismantling.
42. 
    page 42 · act IV

    The citizens help him dismantle them

    The dismantling proceeds. The citizens — cheerful even unto their own undoing — hold tools for Trurl, hammer at their own heads when cranial lids stick. Trurl tears the blueprints to shreds, sits at his book-piled desk, and vents his resentment at Klapaucius. The depth of the humiliation. (part 1/2) Merged with p046: 4-beat dismantling on one page — helping-with-wrench → hammering-own-head → tearing-blueprints → resentful-at-desk.
43. 
    page 43 · act IV

    Smashing the psychopermutator

    ¶69: Trurl smashes the device that had transformed every impulse into active solicitude. The kinetic act of repudiation — Act II's mirror to Act I's prophecy splashes. Three silent beats: take-from-case → THE SMASH (full-bleed splash) → wreckage aftermath.
44. 
    page 44 · act IV

    The 3000-citizen society

    Trurl's Model II takes shape — three thousand stout citizens form a society overnight, immediately voting by universal suffrage, building houses, putting up fences, throwing parties. Inside each citizen's head: an elaborate homeostat mechanism with two electrodes, a free-will zone between them, a positive spring overpowering a destruction-spring held in check by a safety clip. The technical guts of the new design beneath the cheerful surface. (part 1/2) Merged with p050: city panorama → annotated schematic → Trurl inspects an open-head. Marginalia dissolved; technical-spec text now lives as a caption on the schematic panel.
45. 
    page 45 · act IV

    Moral monitor + the night of joy

    The moral monitor — a sensitivity-organ vised between two toothed jaws that gnaw whenever its possessor strays from the straight and narrow — is the second layer of Trurl's design. He tests it on a prototype that falls into violent fits; eases it; considers a splitting-headache feedback but abandons it for fear of Klap's lecture on compulsion. That night Trurl is awakened by sounds of joy from the proving-ground. He convinces himself he has won at last and falls asleep content. (part 1/2) Merged with p052: monitor test → rejected headache → Trurl-in-bed hearing distant joy → falls asleep content. Marginalia dissolved; technical-spec and atmosphere-description now in-image captions.
46. 
    page 46 · act IV

    Klap inspects the proving ground

    Klap arrives at the felicitological proving ground at noon. He inspects everything — homes, minarets, courthouses, citizens. He tests the same punch that worked last time on the prototype, but THIS time three citizens seize him by the britches and, singing in unison, heave him over the gate. He climbs out of a roadside ditch, worse for wear. The first sign that Trurl's Model II is qualitatively different — Trurl's experiment has armed itself.
47. 
    page 47 · act IV

    I'll be back tomorrow

    Trurl asks Klap his verdict, pretending not to notice the mortification. Klap, climbing out of the ditch in tattered mantle and bent antenna, mutters only that he'll be back tomorrow. Trurl misreads the dignity-saving deferral as a retreat — and quietly congratulates himself.
48. 
    page 48 · act IV

    Patrol stops them

    Next day Trurl and Klap re-enter the settlement and find it GREATLY CHANGED. They are stopped by a militant patrol. The highest-ranking officer demands cheer ('Chin up!'); the second commands posture ('Shoulders back!'); the third says nothing, only claps the constructor on the back with a mailed fist. Klap doesn't wait for encouragement — he snaps to attention with a properly ecstatic expression. The patrol is satisfied and turns away.
49. 
    page 49 · act IV

    All hail to life!

    Klap, having watched Trurl take the clang, snaps to attention before they can turn to him — assuming a properly ecstatic painted expression of his own. The patrol is satisfied. Then a mass rally: an old officer in epaulets and plumes bellows 'All hail to life!' The gathered crowd thunders back 'All hail to happiness!' Trurl and Klap caught in the surge, swept along.
50. 
    page 50 · act IV

    Left! Right! Left! Right! — Felicifica drill

    Before Trurl can react, he and Klap are wedged into marching columns and compelled to drill the rest of the day. The maneuver: make oneself as miserable as possible while furthering the welfare of the next-in-line, all to the rhythm of 'Left! Right!' Trurl's experiment has become its own joyless army. (part 1/2) Merged with p051: 3-panel drill sequence on one page. ¶80 marg dissolved; G-men/Felicemen description now a caption on the column-vista panel.
51. 
    page 51 · act IV

    Escape through the gully

    During a brief intermission in the felicitological exercises, Trurl and Klap slip away and hide behind a hedge. They find a gully and follow it, crouching as if under heavy fire, to Trurl's place — locking themselves in the attic just in the nick of time as patrols comb the area for the discontent, gloomy, or sad, summarily felicitizing them on the spot.
52. 
    page 52 · act IV

    The demolition squad

    In the attic, Trurl curses and fumes while Klap struggles to keep from laughing out loud. Unable to think of anything better, Trurl shakes his head and dispatches a DEMOLITION SQUAD to the settlement — programmed to be impervious to the lure of brotherly love and joy, a provision he carefully keeps from Klap. The squad assembles on a workbench: small belligerent constructor-robots with brass clamps and grappling hooks, painted with martial frowns instead of citizens' smiles. (part 1/2) [merged with p053: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
53. 
    page 53 · act IV

    Felicifica fought most valiantly

    The battle becomes full-pitched, the war all-out. Both sides displayed truly staggering dedication, and grapeshot and shrapnel filled the air. As the last bastion of universal happiness, Felicifica fought most valiantly, and Trurl had to send replacements with heavy-duty clamps and grappling hooks.
54. 
    page 54 · act IV

    War on Nature herself

    Stepping out into the moonlit night, the constructors behold a piteous sight: smoldering ruins, a dying Feliceman whispering its undying devotion. Trurl bursts into tears of rage, unable to understand what went wrong. Klap diagnoses: 'He who is glad wishes others glad… ends up clubbing gladness into all recalcitrants.' Trurl: 'Then Good may produce Evil! War against Nature Herself! Adieu! I shall win yet!' The act's pivot. (part 1/2) [merged with p56, marg converted to caption.]
55. 
    page 55 · act V

    These be my guide

    Grim and more determined, Trurl returns to his books. Common sense whispers battlements with embrasures for artillery — but that's no way to begin the construction of brotherly love. So he commits instead to MICROMINIATURIZATION at 100,000:1, and hangs four engraved signs on his workshop wall to keep him honest: SACRED AUTONOMY, SWEET PARITY, SUBTLE CHARITY, UNOBTRUSIVE AVUNCULARITY. The new methodology of Act V begins.
56. 
    page 56 · act V

    Electromites under the microscope

    Trurl assembles 1000 electromites under the microscope and endows them with little minds and not much greater love of Good — by now he fears fanaticism. At first they live dully, their box resembling the works of a watch. Trurl opens an intelligence valve; the electromites grow lively and start fashioning tools from stray filings to pry open their dwelling-box. (part 1/2) [merged with p59; marg dissolved to caption.]
57. 
    page 57 · act V

    Worship of the Absolute Orphan

    Trurl raises the Good potential. Overnight the society goes self-sacrificing — every electromite runs about looking for someone to save, widows and orphans in particular demand (especially if blind). The poor things flee + hide in the farthest corners of the box. After 18 generations the shortage of orphans pushes the micromites to worship the ABSOLUTE ORPHAN — a transcendent figure nothing could ever rescue from dismal orphanhood. Religious icons proliferate: the Triple Cripple, the Lord Up Above. (part 1/2) [merged with p61; both margs dissolved to captions.]
58. 
    page 58 · act V

    Rationalism settles things

    This was not quite what Trurl had in mind, so he introduced RATIONALISM, SKEPTICISM, and COMMON SENSE — turning a brass dial labeled accordingly. The micromite civilization settles into orderly secular life: religious icons toppled, mundane civic activity resumed. Trurl, at the eyepiece, allows himself a small private satisfied smile. The false-victory beat before ¶85's Electrovoltaire arrives.
59. 
    page 59 · act V

    Electrovoltaire arrives

    Though not for long. A certain ELECTROVOLTAIRE appears in the box and announces there is no Absolute Orphan — only the COSMIC CUBE created by the forces of Nature. The orphanists, scandalized, excommunicate him on the spot. The first crack in the false-victory rationalism: a new heresy.
60. 
    page 60 · act V

    The box bouncing on its shelf

    When Trurl returns, the tiny box is BOUNCING ABOUT ON ITS SHELF in the throes of a religious war. He rushes to the eyepiece to find utter chaos — orphanists and electrovoltairians locked in armed combat inside the micro-civilization. The dramatic-irony absent-creator beat.
61. 
    page 61 · act V

    The Great Awl — interventions + generational transition

    Trurl twiddles knobs to fix the religious war: ALTRUISM charge (sizzles), then INTELLIGENCE injection (cools). Result: a great deal of activity and confusion, then disconcertingly mechanical military parades. Another generation: the orphanists + electrovoltairians vanish without trace as the secular Common-Good era takes hold. Four-beat escalation across the page.
62. 
    page 62 · act V

    The Great Awl — origin debate + splash-scale climax

    The secular Common-Good era reaches its intellectual crisis: scholars debate the origin of the species (spontaneous-from-dust vs invaders-from-without). To resolve it, THE GREAT AWL is built — a monumental brass drill aimed at the glass ceiling, the cosmic wall, and powerful weapons are stockpiled against the unknown. Two-panel page: small establishing forum + dominant splash-scale Awl panel (the visual climax of the Awl-civilization arc).
63. 
    page 63 · act V

    Reason leads to heartlessness — the Contemplator reborn

    Trurl is so alarmed at the cosmic-weapons escalation that he scraps the whole model and, close to tears, declares 'Reason leads to heartlessness, Good produces madness! Must every attempt be doomed to failure?' He returns to individual-basis approach: unlocks the closet, retrieves his first prototype the Contemplator. The Contemplator oh-and-ah's in aesthetic rapture before a pile of debris — Trurl plugs in an intelligence component, it falls silent, and Trurl asks what's wrong. Cliffhanger to ¶86. Five-panel breakdown: scrap → tear-streaked lament → closet unlock + Contemplator rapture (side by side) → HEDONS-silenced reveal with the question.
64. 
    page 64 · act V

    Harmony? And why do I have three legs?

    The HEDONS Contemplator, with all FIVE TELESCOPIC EYES turned gravely upon Trurl, speaks. He contains his admiration in order to reflect upon it — he wishes to know the source + the purpose. He resists admiring Trurl, suspecting a trap. Trurl, uncautious, declares HEDONS was created by him for perfect harmony with the world. HEDONS turns ALL his lenses on Trurl and asks the cosmic-existential question: 'Harmony, you say? And why do I have THREE LEGS? Wherefore is my head on top? For what reason am I brass on the left and iron on the right? And why do I have FIVE EYES?' The four canonical bible-ref features called out one by one. The Act V climax. (part 1/2) [merged with p69; both dialogue margs dissolved to balloons.]
65. 
    page 65 · act V

    Ran out of iron!

    Trurl tries to explain HEDONS' construction in matter-of-fact terms — three legs for stability, five eyes because that's how many lenses he had, brass on the right because he ran out of iron. HEDONS the Contemplator, undeterred, sneers in disbelief that all this could be the product of sheer accident, pure luck, blind chance.
66. 
    page 66 · act V

    Two possibilities

    Trurl, irritated, asserts his creator's authority — he ought to know, he created HEDONS! The Contemplator, unmoved, offers a circumspect bifurcation: either Trurl is an outright liar (unverifiable, set aside), or he believes he speaks the truth but that 'truth' is itself untrue because his understanding is feeble. Trurl, blindsided, can only manage 'Come again?'
67. 
    page 67 · act V

    Higher Necessity — the numerology tirade

    HEDONS launches the Higher Necessity speech: every accidental detail of his construction reveals Provident Harmony. Three panels: the opening claim (iron shortage was no accident), the eye-and-leg ratio mysticism (3 and 5 are prime, 3×5=15→1+5=6÷3=2 colours), and the elegant-precision conclusion. The grandiose numerologist is born — Trurl listens with growing dismay.
68. 
    page 68 · act V

    Higher Necessity — the metaphor cascade + dismissal

    HEDONS' tirade builds: the 'I am a being whose essence extends beyond your petty horizons' verdict, the metaphor cascade ('You are a random drop of rain, I the flower' + moldering-post/blazing-sun + blind-tool-of-Higher-Laws), and the closing dismissal ('Importune me then no longer with your presence — I have better things to do than bandy words with you'). Trurl is dismissed by his own creation.
69. 
    page 69 · act V

    Sitting at his desk, he felt like a criminal

    Incensed by HEDONS' tirade, Trurl shoves the struggling Contemplator back into its closet — HEDONS invokes the right to self-determination and individual inviolability in a ringing voice, but Trurl disconnects the intelligence component anyway. The violence fills him with shame; he sneaks back to his desk, looking for witnesses, and feels like a criminal.
70. 
    page 70 · act V

    There must be some other way

    Trurl sits alone at his desk, brooding. Some curse, he thinks, hangs over any construction work that has only Good and Universal Happiness as its goals — every attempt has involved him in foul deeds and feelings of guilt. He curses HEDONS and its Higher Necessity. He resolves: there must be some other way.
71. 
    page 71 · act V

    Angstromanians

    Trurl pivots to a thousand experiments at once. Under an electron microscope he twists individual atoms into beings the size of microbes — Angstromanians, 250,000 per culture, a single olive-grey stain on a slide. He equips them with altruinfraternal regulators, eudaemonitors, nonaggression pawls. Slides go into packets, packets into the civilizing incubator, each capped with a pale-blue cover-glass sky. Trurl, much like the Lord God Himself, parts the clouds and surveys their undertakings. (part 1/2) [merged with p78; both margs dissolved to captions.]
72. 
    page 72 · act V

    Three hundred cultures went bad

    Three hundred Angstromanian cultures self-destruct: phosphorescent flicker → crackle → fine dust. Under 800× magnification, Trurl finds only charred ruins and tattered banners with inscriptions too small to read. Failed slides go to the wastebasket. Others prosper and outgrow their slides; within three weeks Trurl has nineteen thousand stains.
73. 
    page 73 · act V

    Where one can do all, the pleasure will pall

    Trurl grafts hedotropic impulses onto the Angstromanians — first selfish (overindulged, came apart at the seams), then distributed-by-teamwork (rich civilizations emerged). Culture No. 1376 embraces Emulation: Whigs vs Houris. The Houris practice all vices intending to cast them off later; their apprenticeship becomes permanent. The Whigs defeat them and introduce 64,000 inalterable interdictions. When the interdictions are repealed, nothing remains to break — and the fun has gone out of it.
74. 
    page 74 · act V

    Chronic Iconoclasts — the seesaw triptych

    Culture No. 2931 — the Cascadians — three-beat seesaw: Devotional Phase (mass prostration before Great Mother Cascader, Immaculate Maid, Blessed Fenestron) → Transitional moment (ONE figure rises and dusts off his robe while the rest are still bowed) → Sack Phase (defenestration of statues, kicking the Mother, defiling the Maid). Trurl names them the Chronic Iconoclasts. Marginalia eliminated — ¶101 distributed across in-panel captions.
75. 
    page 75 · act V

    Ladderants — endless purgatories + Galloping Defeatism

    Culture No. 95 — the Ladderants — metaphysics-into-its-own-hands. The Ministers of the Ladder follow this world with an endless progression of purgatories and probational paradises (Celestial Suburbs / Outskirts / Outlying Districts / Precincts / Boroughs) but never the Celestial City Itself. Bit-Chafers want to enter the gates now; Advocates of the Circular Stair propose a trap-door + Stochastically Fluctuating Closed Cycle. Orthodox anathematizes this as Galloping Defeatism. Two-panel page (expanded p1 + specimen-plate p2), marg eliminated, pronoun-orphan resolved via antecedent caption.
76. 
    page 76 · act V

    Three Appropriated Metaphysics — broadside + bathtubs + religious war

    Trurl surveys more Appropriated Metaphysics: Rectifiers of Evil and Two-way Cable Cars (NEW broadside-register catalog), then Culture No. 6101's 'Heaven on Earth' debauchery (bathtubs of whipped cream, piggyback maenads, caviar drowning), then the Abstinent Friars cycle (penance Monday–Saturday, orgies Sunday) collapsing into another religious war. The catalog rhythm broken at p1 (non-bezel broadside register protects p077's bezel-as-climax). Marg eliminated. Three panels, ¶103 distributed across in-panel captions + in-image vignette labels.
77. 
    page 77 · act V

    Genius-City — the second and final end

    ¶104 climax — the catastrophic vision: through the microscope eyepiece, Culture No. 6590 in collapse. Burning studios, leaping geniuses, sidewalks heaped with unread epics, the second-and-final end. The 5th full-bleed prophecy splash, mirroring p011 (Trurl's prophecy), p014 (Troglodyne's plateau), p016 (Klap's unpleasant choice), p043 (the smash). Trurl's catastrophe — the literal moment he realizes he has destroyed a civilization.
78. 
    page 78 · act V

    Fire in the library — and a laser to the eye (cont.)

    The Era of Interslidal Travel begins. Trurl examines Culture No. 6590 — a society of geniuses. Studios overflow; epics pile on sidewalks; no one reads anyone else's work; geniuses leap from high windows in despair of no recognition. The civilization collapses. Then a FIRE breaks out in Trurl's library: civilizations misplaced among the old books mistook mildew for cosmic invaders, armed themselves and opened fire. Three thousand books burn. Trurl, examining a surviving culture, is struck IN THE EYE by a laser beam from microscopic astrophysicists. He never approaches the microscope without sunglasses again.
79. 
    page 79 · act V ¶

    The Gehennerator of Evil

    Trurl makes more Angstromanians to replace those lost in the fire. His hand slips on the controls — instead of the Generator of Good he flips the GEHENNERATOR OF EVIL. Curious rather than discard the specimen, he transfers it to the incubator. To his astonishment, a perfectly ORDINARY civilization takes shape — neither better nor worse than the others. Trurl tears his hair: it makes no sense, yet he feels close to some Great Truth.
80. 
    page 80 · act V

    I shall construct one to solve this

    Trurl racks his brains but no answer comes. He stores his civilizations in a drawer and goes to bed. In the morning he wakes resolved: this is the most difficult problem in the universe, perhaps. Reason itself, he fears, may be incompatible with Happiness — as HEDONS demonstrated. But Trurl refuses to accept that Law of Nature. There are always mechanical aids — electronic brains, mental modulators, encephalogue computers. He shall CONSTRUCT one to solve this existential dilemma. (part 1/2) [merged with p089: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
81. 
    page 81 · act V

    Trurl's machine cascade — runaway construction

    ¶110: Trurl builds machines that build machines; the cascade across the meadow culminating in 'disappeared with a sizable splash'.
82. 
    page 82 · act V

    Wisdom Barrier — the climactic comprehension

    ¶110 continued — the Wisdom Barrier reveal. p081's panels showed the runaway cascade from a distance/aerial; p082 now lands the COMPREHENSION moment: an ant's-eye-up view of the 49th-generation tower disappearing into the clouds (the inverse camera from p081's bird's-eye-down aerials, creating compositional contrast and resisting visual duplication), followed by a tight close-up of Trurl's groaning Wisdom-Barrier realization. Marginalia eliminated: both former marg fragments absorbed (the waterfall-of-noise rendered as sound-arcs in p1's image; the Cerebron byline trimmed as a reference that doesn't earn the page real estate).
83. 
    page 83 · act VI

    I built a Relegator, not a Calculator

    Trurl realizes his folly: he built a RELEGATOR, not a Calculator. He sends a demolition squad to clear three days' worth of cloud-reaching computer-towers. Back at the workbench he hits on an idea — instead of dividing himself, MULTIPLY. EUREKA! He builds a special new machine and uploads a perfect informational-mathematical copy of himself into it, with a thought accelerator and a legion of multiplying Trurls inside. Satisfied, he dusts off and goes for a stroll, whistling cheerfully. (part 1/2) [merged with p93; 27w marg dissolved to caption.]
84. 
    page 84 · act VI

    Trurl-vs-digital-Trurl opening — return + first monologue

    ¶114-116: Trurl returns to question his digital duplicate; digital-Trurl's accusatory opening monologue; Trurl exasperated reply.
85. 
    page 85 · act VI

    Digital-Trurl's self-defense + Trurl's outburst

    ¶117-119: digital-Trurl's full self-defense cascade + Trurl's 'Please, please get to the point!' + digital-Trurl's righteous-indignation rebuttal.
86. 
    page 86 · act VI

    Trurl-vs-digital-Trurl university reveal

    ¶120-123: digital-Trurl reveals he set up a university; Trurl asks 'What, again?'; digital-Trurl explains. (part 1/2) [merged with p097: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
87. 
    page 87 · act VI

    Another computer? Administrative threat

    ¶124-126: 'Another computer?' exchange + coercive threat + pacification beat.
88. 
    page 88 · act VI

    The Contrastive Beatifier and the Euphorizer

    The digital Trurl reports their progress — there's now an administrative computer-of-the-computer, and through it a Junior Trurl who has worked on two PROTOTYPES: the Contrastive Beatifier and the Euphorizer. The premise: 'He who is happy is unhappy if not also unhappy at the moment.' Trurl protests. (part 1/2) [merged with p100; 122w marg dissolved to caption.]
89. 
    page 89 · act VI

    The Contrastive Beatifier and the Euphorizer (cont.)

    The digital Trurl reports their progress — there's now an administrative computer-of-the-computer, and through it a Junior Trurl who has worked on two PROTOTYPES: the Contrastive Beatifier and the Euphorizer. The premise: 'He who is happy is unhappy if not also unhappy at the moment.' Trurl protests.
90. 
    page 90 · act VI

    Successive approximations — Synthetic guardian angels

    Digital-Trurl begins cataloguing the ecstatisticians' failed civilizations. ¶135 in full: synthetic guardian angels in stationary orbit, downed by catapult-wielding sinners → cyberseraph escalation → the hierarchy-of-psyche payoff (sweet/sugar, bitter/truth) → Trurl XXV's Sex-vs-Reason thesis. Three panels: cutaway-opener + cyberseraph specimen-plate (BEFORE/AFTER diptych) + Euphoriatron dial-crowd repurposed. Marg eliminated, ¶135 distributed across panel captions.
91. 
    page 91 · act VI

    Successive approximations — Twenty-four sexes

    Trurl's deflection 'Never.' (¶136) → digital-Trurl's continued catalog (¶137): reproduction-by-budding → narcissism → 24-sex optimal solution → four-column promenade absurdity. Three panels: Trurl-monitor two-shot opener + sexual group-theory chalkboard specimen-plate + four-column promenade vignette. Marg eliminated, ¶137 distributed.
92. 
    page 92 · act VI

    Successive approximations — Perfect beings are mineral

    Trurl's deflection 'This is nonsense!' (¶138) → digital-Trurl's qualification (¶139, junior-colleague-findings) → ¶141 fully visualized: floating perfect-beings cosmic vista + self-crumbling-beings beat + the questionnaire-beating gag + the paper-tape verdict 'PERFECT BEINGS ARE ESSENTIALLY MINERAL'. Closes with the 'let me out of here' machine plea that sets up p094's 'How can I possibly let you out?' (originally p094). Five panels at varied heights, marg eliminated.
93. 
    page 93 · act VI

    How can I possibly let you out?

    Trurl asks how he could possibly free the digital double. The double: 'Why should I? What's in it for me?' Trurl: 'What a selfish attitude!' The double accuses Trurl of taking all the credit.
94. 
    page 94 · act VI

    They're all Trurls!

    Trurl offers an award; Digital Trurl declines, noting he can grant himself the Cipher Citation in-machine. Trurl: 'What, decorate yourself?' Digital Trurl: 'Then the University Assembly can decorate me.' Pivot to ¶150 punchline: the University Assembly are themselves all Trurls.
95. 
    page 95 · act VI

    You sacrifice yourself

    The double observes that bestowing happiness on some at the expense of others is unjust. Trurl: 'But if you speak, you sacrifice yourself.' Digital double, with the same logic mirrored: 'YOU sacrifice yourself!' Trurl losing temper, controlled. (part 1/2) [merged with p109: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
96. 
    page 96 · act VI

    Which Trurl will you acknowledge?

    Trurl offers a written acknowledgment. Digital double: 'Which Trurl will you acknowledge?' The matter of identity. 'You no more invented me than yourself.' Trurl: 'You're information; I'm information PLUS matter.' Machine: 'Then you obviously know more — don't bother me!' (part 1/2) [merged with p111: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
97. 
    page 97 · act VI

    Threatening murder?

    Trurl threatens to turn the machine off. Digital double: 'Threatening murder?' The argument crescendos. Digital double: 'The academic year has ended. You're no longer speaking to the regular Trurl... Ah, there's my carriage. CHEERIO!' (part 1/2) [merged with p113: collapsed pair-split into one dense page.]
98. 
    page 98 · act VII

    Without another word

    ¶177 in full — the unplug + digital-death-rattle + realization + flight beat. Four panels: physical-Trurl pulls the plug from behind the machine; the filaments fade inside the screen (digital death rattle); Trurl frozen mid-reach in horror of what he has done; Trurl fleeing the workshop. The visual continuity from p097's 'Cheerio!' digital-Trurl wave-off into the chapter pivot.
99. 
    page 99 · act VII

    Across the moonlit field

    ¶178 distributed across 3 panels: Trurl on the garden bench beneath the cyberberry bush (the silver-moon overhead — visual setup for the Klapaucius/Cerebron memory bridge) → Trurl walking across the moonlit field with frogs/pond/baroque-sepulchre margins (the silver-satellite-memory voiceover carrying the emotional weight) → Cemetery arrival splash, hexagonal tomb deliberately cropped out to preserve p100's tomb reveal. Marg eliminated.
100. 
     page 100 · act VII ¶

     The hexagonal tomb

     Trurl finally stands before Cerebron's tomb. He breaks in, gropes through the dark interior, finds the strainer-microphone and a large button, presses it — and recoils as the awakening current crackles to life. A hollow cough, then a feeble familiar voice.
101. 
     page 101 · act VII

     Cerebron irate awakening — Trurl stammers

     ¶180-181: Cerebron's irate awakening rant from inside the sealed tomb; Trurl stammers and lowers his head in submission.
102. 
     page 102 · act VII

     Cerebron recognizes Trurl, banging clanging

     ¶182-185: Cerebron rasps recognition + banging/clanking + the 'no, I'm not coming out, just straightening up' moment.
103. 
     page 103 · act VII

     Trurl wakes Cerebron — the scolding begins

     After the scratching and scraping subsides (¶186), Cerebron's voice resumes from inside the sealed tomb — three irate jabs at his former pupil ('made a mess?' → 'no respect for these poor remains' → 'all right, let's hear it').
104. 
     page 104 · act VII

     Trurl's formal preamble — Cerebron cuts him off

     Trurl screws up his courage and addresses the tomb with deferential flatter (¶188). Cerebron interrupts mid-frill (¶189 'dispense with all the frills and fripperies') and names the obvious — Trurl has quarreled with his rival.
105. 
     page 105 · act VII

     Klapaucius confirmed — Cerebron resumes the rebuke

     Trurl snaps to attention and confesses (¶190 'Klapaucius! Yes, we did quarrel!'). Cerebron resumes his scolding (¶191 'And instead of sitting down and talking the problem over... you sneak out at night and pester the weary corpse of your old master').
106. 
     page 106 · act VII

     Trurl's confession in the cemetery

     ¶192-193: Trurl bends over the strainer-microphone in confessional posture; Cerebron maintains sepulchral silence, then his voice returns in the youthful baritone.
107. 
     page 107 · act VII

     Ghost-Cerebron reveal + the verdict barks back

     ¶194 onward: silent ghost-Cerebron reveal panel; the verdict barks ('Of course. You're an ass.') + scolding ramps up. (part 1/2) [merged with p125; 15w marg dissolved to caption.]
108. 
     page 108 · act VII

     Cerebron's tirade — "You're an ass"

     ¶194 in full: Cerebron's diagnostic tirade from the tomb. Twelve rhetorical beats across four panels — the opening insult, the diagnosis, the admission, the schoolroom verdict, the Contemplator mockery, the parting jab. Trurl absorbs each blow in shifting body language: head bowed → temple massage → straightening → recoil. The full marg-dissolution pattern (212w of ¶194 redistributed from marg tombs to in-image dialogue).
109. 
     page 109 · act VII

     Cerebron's tirade — "You've become a criminal"

     ¶195 narrator + ¶196 in full: Cerebron's escalating indictment. Six rhetorical beats across five panels — criminal accusation, litany of crimes, Wisdom Barrier sneer, Codex Galacticus, deontology course taunt, Speak up! The 279w of ¶196 redistributed from marg tomb to in-image dialogue across the cemetery scene.
110. 
     page 110 · act VII

     There never was any university — the Ecstasotron lecture

     ¶197 Trurl mutters his excuse; ¶198 narrator transitions (heart of gold); ¶199 in full: Cerebron's lecture on the Ecstasotron — the only foolproof happiness device, calibrated in bromeons not hedons, with safety-valve hysteresis lest it die laughing. Closes with the demand for the Opera Omnia. 382w of ¶199 redistributed from marg tomb to in-image dialogue.
111. 
     page 111 · act VII

     Möbius of Klein — "What a pity You do not exist"

     Cerebron's bellow continues through ¶200's narrator interlude (Trurl lying about the books in the cellar) and ¶201's full follow-up: the Ecstasotron is worthless, the topological insult, the sudden flare-up about Klapaucius having done the same thing last year, and the climactic 'Lord, Lord! What a pity You do not exist!'.
112. 
     page 112 · act VII

     There never was any university (cont. 2)

     Cerebron continues. Trurl haltingly explains the duplicate. Cerebron explodes at the very idea. Then begins to explain Trurl was tricked — there was never a 'university of Trurls' in the computer, only a single duplicate. Klapaucius arranged the whole show to throw Trurl off.
113. 
     page 113 · act VII

     Klap arranged the whole show — "Why should I play spectral nursemaid?"

     ¶204-207 in full: Trurl's flattering 'Master and Maestro!' diversion attempt deflected by Cerebron's 'Insoluble? Why insoluble?' pivot. ¶205 happiness-extraction lecture (cerebrons-after-me). ¶206 Trurl hangs his head. Then ¶207 in full: the exam-comparison fury, the 'second derivative' lecture, the screwdriver-disassemble accusation, the 'spectral nursemaid' closer, and the self-murder count.
114. 
     page 114 · act VII

     Cerebron demolishes Trurl's belief — the unplugged eternity

     Trurl asks 'How do you mean, only one count?' and Cerebron demolishes — the machines lied. Closes on 'unplugged for all eternity'.
115. 
     page 115 · act VII

     Capacity calculation + parting command (cluster ending)

     ¶211-213: capacity exchange (Upsilon 10^10), then Cerebron's parting command to return home and resurrect Klap.
116. 
     page 116 · act VII

     By all that's thermonuclear! — physics vs ethics + the strait-jacket question

     ¶214-219 in full: the two-Trurl confession (¶214/215), Trurl's hypothetical defense (¶216), cry of outrage (¶217), and Cerebron's iconic 441w tirade ¶218 — 'By all that's thermonuclear!' / 'I gave this monster his diploma cum laude!' / 'You confuse physics and ethics utterly!' / the unplug-the-plug thought experiment / 'Only now do I understand how abysmal is your ignorance!' / the strait-jacket-of-Eternal-Happiness question. Closes with Trurl's ¶219 'No! Of course not!'.
117. 
     page 117 · act VII

     The chapter's moral — "Go home and do as I've commanded"

     ¶220 in full: Cerebron's chapter-closing moral. The cosmic horror reproach ('what fills you personally with horror you are ready to perpetrate on a cosmic scale!'), the philosophical core ('the whole wisdom and beauty of our existence lies in the fact that when one wearies of it all... he calmly takes his leave'), the laziness verdict, the aleph-aleph-infinity sins tally, and the closing command 'Go home, awaken your cyberbrother and do as I've commanded'. 398w of ¶220 redistributed from marg tomb to in-image dialogue across the cemetery scene — the entire moral spine of the chapter.
118. 
     page 118 · act VII

     Bring a bucket of mortar

     The two-Trurl problem still exists. Cerebron rants about it again. He explodes at giving the duplicate-Trurl his diploma. The sentence: Trurl must bring a bucket of mortar, a shovel, a trowel, and repair the mausoleum. Then Cerebron clatters and the conversation ends. Trurl walks back across the geometric landscape, chastened. End.
119. 
     page 119 · act VII

     Closing rebuke — Cerebron's final dismissal

     Cerebron's parting orders + Trurl's stammering interruption + the rebuke about Klap's manners (¶222-226).
120. 
     page 120 · act VII

     Silence falls — Trurl bows

     The ending image: silence, Trurl's bow, the translator credit, and the closing splash (¶227-228).
121. 
     page 121 · act VII

     The cemetery empties — Trurl takes to his heels

     Chapter-closing full-bleed splash: Trurl mid-sprint across the moonlit field AWAY from the cemetery, body in full kinetic run yet face beaming — the paradox of ¶227's 'gay as a lark and tremendously pleased with himself, ran as if the very devil were after him.' Visual mirror to p099-p2 (Trurl walking TO the cemetery, head-down/contemplative) — now Trurl FROM the cemetery, full body kinetic, face joyful. Translator credit is NOT in the image — reader chrome carries it.