Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/180

Rh Dear she is such a dear! “Without fail!” I was smiling, and I could not stop! I felt I would carry that smile with me into the street like a light above my head.

Outside the wind ran over me, whirling, whistling, whipping, but I felt even more cheerful. “All right, go on, go on moaning and groaning! The Walls cannot be torn down.” Flying leaden clouds broke over my head well, let them! They could not eclipse the sun! We chained it to the zenith like so many Joshuas, sons of Nun!

At the corner a group of such Joshuas, sons of Nun, were standing with their foreheads pasted to the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table, a Number already lay. You could see two naked soles emerging from under the sheet in a yellow angle White medics bent over his head—a white hand, a stretched-out hand holding a syringe filled with something

“And you, what are you waiting for?” I asked nobody in particular, or rather all of them.

“And you?” Someone’s round head turned to me.

“I? Oh, afterward! I must first ” Somewhat confused, I left the place. I really had to see I-330 first. But why first? I could not explain to myself

The docks. The Integral, bluish like ice, was glistening and sparkling. The engine was caressingly grumbling, repeating some one word, as if it were my word, a familiar one. I bent down and stroked the long, cold tube of the motor. “Dear! What a dear tube! Tomorrow it will come to life, tomorrow for the first time it will tremble with burning, flaming streams in its bowels.”

With what eyes would I have looked at the glass monster had everything remained as it was yesterday? If I knew that tomorrow at twelve I should betray it, yes, betray Someone behind cautiously touched my elbow. I turned around. The plate-like, flat face of the Second Builder.

“Do you know already?” he asked.