Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/222

Rh She said, without opening her eyes (I noticed this), “They say you went to see the Well-Doer yesterday; is it true?”

“Yes.”

Then her eyes opened widely and with delight I looked at her and saw that her face grew quickly paler and paler, that it effaced itself, disappearing—only the eyes remained.

I told her everything. Only for some reason, why I don’t know (no, that’s not true, I know the reason), I was silent about one thing: His assertion at the end that they needed me only in order

Like the image on a photographic plate in a developing fluid, her face gradually reappeared: the cheeks, the white line of teeth, the lips. She stood up and went to the mirror door of the closet. My mouth was dry again. I poured water but it was revolting to drink it; I put the glass back on the table and asked:

“Did you come to see me because you wanted to inquire ?”

A sharp, mocking triangle of brows drawn to the temples looked at me from the mirror. She turned around to say something, but said nothing.

It was not necessary; I knew.

To bid her good-by, I moved my foreign limbs, struck the chair with them. It fell upside down, dead, like the just as cold was table in her room. Her lips were cold once the floor, here, near my bed

When she left I sat down on the floor, bent over the cigarette butt

I cannot write any more—I no longer want to!