Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/172

Rh And just ahead the dark red mass. Those two colors combined gave me what I thought was a splendid idea.

“Wait! I know how to save you! I shall save you from To see one’s own child for a few moments only, and then be sent to death! No! You shall be able to bring it up! You shall watch it and see it grow in your arms, and ripen like a fruit”

Her body quivered and she seemed have chained to herself to me.

“Do you remember that woman, I-330? That of  of long ago? Who during that walk? Well, she is now right here, in the Ancient House. Let us go to her and I assure you that I shall arrange matters at once.”

I already pictured us, I-330 and I, leading O-90 through the corridors then how she would be brought amidst flowers, grass, and leaves But O-90 stepped back, the little horns of her rosy crescent trembling and bending downward.

“Is she that same one?” she asked.

“That is ” I was confused for some reason. “Yes, of course that very same”

“And you want me to go to her, to ask her to  Don’t you ever dare to say another word about it!”

Leaning over, she walked away Then, as if she had remembered something, she turned around and cried:

“I shall die; all right! And it’s none of your business What do you care?”

Silence. From above pieces of blue towers and walls were falling downward with terrific speed they will have perhaps hours or days to fly through the infinite Unseen threads were slowly floating through the air, planting themselves upon my face, and it was impossible to brush them off, impossible to rid myself of them.

I walked slowly toward the Ancient House, and in my heart I felt that absurd, tormenting compression