Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/213

Rh twitching, brick-red gills, on that morning when both of them

I remember now, clearly, how I raised my eyes and laughed. A Socrates-like, bald-headed man was sitting before me; and small drops of sweat dotted the bald surface of his head.

How simple, how magnificently trivial everything was! How simple almost to the point of being ridiculous! Laughter was choking me and bursting forth in puffs; I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed wildly out

Steps. Wind. Damp, leaping fragments of lights and faces And while running: “No! Only to see her! To see her once more!”

Here again an empty white page. All I remember is feet: not people, just feet, hundreds of feet, confusedly stamping feet, falling from somewhere in the pavement, a heavy rain of feet And some cheerful, daring voice, and a shout that was probably for me: “Hey, hey! Come here! Come along with us!”

Afterward—a deserted square heavily overloaded with tense wind. In the middle of the square a dim, heavy, threatening mass—the Machine of the Well-Doer. And a seemingly unexpected image arose within me in response to the sight of the Machine: a snow-white pillow, and on the pillow a head thrown back, and half-closed eyes, and a sharp, sweet line of teeth All this seemed so absurdly, so terribly connected with the Machine. I know how this connection has come about, but I do not yet want to see it nor to say it aloud—I don’t want to! I don’t!

I closed my eyes and sat down on the steps which led upward to the Machine. I must have been running hard, for my face was wet. From somewhere far away cries were coming. But nobody heard them; nobody heard me crying: “Save me from it—save me!”

If only I had a mother as the ancients had—my mother, mine, for whom I should be not the Builder of the Integral,