Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/206

Rh The tentacles suddenly let me go; I threw myself toward the place she was speaking from; but at that very moment everything was brought down in confusion. Shouts from behind: “They are coming here! Coming here!” The lights twinkled and went out—someone had cut the cable—and everything was like a lava of cries, groaning, heads, fingers

I do not know how long we were rolled about that way in the underground tube. I only remember that underneath my feet steps were felt, dusk appeared, becoming brighter and brighter, and again we were in the street, dispersing fan wise in different directions.

Again I was alone. Wind. Gray, low twilight crawling over my head. In the damp glass of the sidewalk, somewhere very deep, there were light, topsy-turvy walls and figures moving along, feet upward. And that terribly heavy package in my hands pulled me down into that depth, to the bottom.

At the desk again. U- was not yet there; her room was dark and empty. I went up to my room and turned on the light. My temples, tightly bound by the iron ring, were pulsating. I paced and paced, always in the same circle: my table, the white package on the table, the bed, my table, the white package on the table In the room to my left the curtains were lowered. To my right, the knotty bald head bent over a book, the enormous, parabolic forehead. Wrinkles on the forehead like a series of yellow, illegible lines. At times our eyes met, and then I felt that those lines were about me.

It happened at twenty-one o’clock exactly. U- came in on her own initiative. I remember that my breathing was so loud that I could hear it, and that I wanted to breathe less noisily but was unable to.

She sat down and arranged the fold of her unif on her knees. The pinkish-brown gills were waving.

“Oh, dear, is it true that you are wounded? I just learned about it, and at once I ran ”