Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/124

Rh RECORD TWENTY-ONE

The Duty of an AuthorThe Ice SwellsThe Most Difficult Love

Yesterday was her day and again she did not come. Again there came her incoherent note, explaining nothing. But I am tranquil, perfectly tranquil. If I act as I am told to in the note, if I go to the controller on duty, produce the pink check, and then, having lowered the curtains, if I sit alone in my room, I do all this not because I have no power to act contrary to her desire. That seems funny? Decidedly not! It is quite simple: separated from all curative, plaster-like smiles I am enabled quietly to write these very lines. This, first. And second: I am afraid to lose in her, in I-330, perhaps the only clue I shall ever have to an understanding of all the unknowns, like the story of the cupboard, or my temporary death, for instance. To understand, to discover these unknowns as the author of these records, I feel to be my simple duty. Moreover, the unknown is naturally the enemy of man. And Homo sapiens only then becomes man in the complete sense of the word, when his punctuation includes no question marks, only exclamation points, commas, and periods.

Thus, guided by what seems to me my simple duty as an author, I took an aero today at sixteen o’clock and went to the Ancient House. A strong wind was blowing against me. The aero advanced with difficulty through