We: New Edition by Yevgeny Zamyatin & Clarence Brown

Author:Yevgeny Zamyatin & Clarence Brown [Zamyatin, Yevgeny]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781101075388
Publisher: Penguin Classic
Published: 1993-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Never again. It’s better that way, of course. She’s right. But why, why ...

RECORD 19

Third-Order Infinitesimal A Sullen Glare Over the Parapet

There in that strange corridor with the wavy dotted line of dull lightbulbs ... or no, not there ... later, when she and I were in that out-of-the-way niche in the courtyard of the Ancient House ... she said, “Day after tomorrow.” That “day after tomorrow” is today, and everyone’s sprouted wings, the day is flying, and our INTEGRAL already has its wings on: They’ve finished installing the rocket engine, and today we put it through a test run. What magnificent, powerful blasts, and for me each one was a salute to her, to the only one, and to this day.

At the first pass (= shot) some ten or so Numbers from our hangar were caught napping beneath the engine exhaust—absolutely nothing was left of them but some sort of crumbs and soot. I’m proud to note down here that this did not cause a second’s hitch in the rhythm of our work, no one flinched; and we and our work teams continued our rectilinear and circular movement with exactly the same precision as though nothing had happened. Ten Numbers—that is scarcely one hundred-millionth part of the mass of OneState. For all practical purposes, it’s a third-order infinitesimal. Innumerate pity is a thing known only to the ancients; to us it’s funny.

And it’s funny to me that yesterday I was capable of wasting time thinking about—and even noting down in these pages —some pathetic gray spot, some ink-blot. That’s the same “softening of the surface” that ought to be diamond-hard, like our walls (cf. the old saying: “like peas against a wall”).

16:00 hours. I didn’t go for the extra walk. Who can tell? She might take a notion to come right this minute, with everything ringing in the sunshine.

I’m practically alone in the building. Through the sunny walls I have a long view—to the right, left, and down—of empty rooms hanging in the air, repeating one another like mirror reflections. And only along the bluish staircase, hardly inked in by the sun, an emaciated gray shadow slips slowly upward. Now you can even hear the footsteps, and I can see through the door, I can feel that the plaster-smile has been stuck on me. Then it goes past, to another stairwell, and down.

Click of the intercom screen. I throw myself at the narrow white slot ... and I see some Number I’ve never heard of (male, since it began with a consonant). Elevator hum. Doors slam. In front of me is a Number whose forehead seems to have been carelessly tilted down over his eyes. Very odd impression, as though he were speaking from underneath his brow, where his eyes are located.

“A letter for you, from her.” This from beneath the brow, from behind the curtain. “She asked that everything, without fail, be done as it’s written here. ”

Then a searching look round, still from beneath the brow, the curtain.

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