Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/139

Rh RECORD TWENTY-FOUR

The Limit of the FunctionEasterTo Cross Out Everything

I am like a motor set in motion at a speed of too many revolutions per second; the bearings have become too hot, and in one more minute the molten metal will begin to drip and everything will go to the devil. Cold water! Quick! Some logic! I pour on pailfuls of it, but my logic merely sizzles on the hot metal and disappears into the air in the form of vapor.

Of course it is clear that in order to establish the true meaning of a function one must establish its limit. It is also clear that yesterday’s “dissolution in the universe” taken to its limit is death. For death is exactly the most complete dissolution of the self in the universe. Hence: L = f(D), love is the function of death.

Yes, exactly, exactly! That is why I am afraid of I-330; I struggle against her, I don’t want But why is it that within me “I don’t want to” and “I want to” stand side by side? That is the chief horror of the matter; I continue to long for that happy death of yesterday. The horror of it is that even now, when I have integrated the logical function, when it becomes evident that that function contains death hidden within it, still I long for it with my lips, my arms, my heart, with every millimeter

Tomorrow is the Day of Unanimity. She will certainly