Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/185

Rh RECORD THIRTY-TWO

I Do Not BelieveTractorsA Little Human Splinter

Do you believe that you will die? Oh, yes, “Man is mortal; I am a man; consequently ” No, not that; I know that; you know it. But I ask: Has it ever happened that you actually believed it? Believed definitely, believed not with your reason but with your body, that you actually felt that someday those fingers which now hold this page will become yellow, icy?

No, of course you cannot believe this. That is why you haven’t jumped from the tenth floor to the pavement before now; that is why you eat, turn over these pages, shave, smile, write.

This very thing, yes, exactly this is alive in me today. I know that that small black hand on the clock will slide down here toward midnight, then it will again start to ascend, and it will cross some last border and the improbable tomorrow will have arrived. I know it, but somehow I do not believe it—or perhaps I think that twenty-four hours are twenty-four years. So I am still able to act, to hurry, to answer questions, to climb the rope ladder to the Integral. I am still able to feel how the Integral shakes the surface of the water and I still understand that I must grasp the railing, and I am still able to feel the cold glass in my hand. I see the transparent, living cranes, bending