Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/225

Rh Suddenly from behind me someone touched my elbow. I turned around. Transparent wing ears! But they were not pink as usual; they were purplish red; his Adam’s apple was tossing about as though ready to tear the covering

Quickly boring into me: “What are you here for?”

I seized him.

“Quickly! Please! Quickly! into your office I must tell everything  right away  I am glad that you  It may be terrible that it should be you to whom  But it is good, it is good”

He, too, knew her; this made it even more tormenting for me. But perhaps he, too, would tremble when he heard And we would both be killing  And I would not be alone at that, my supreme second

The door closed with a slam. I remember a piece of paper was caught beneath the door, and it rustled on the floor when the door closed. And then a strange, airless silence covered us as if a glass bell had been put over us. If only he had uttered a single, most insignificant word, no matter what, I would have told him everything at once. But he was silent. So keyed up that I heard a noise in my ears, I said without looking at him:

“I think I always hated her from the very beginning I struggled  Or, no, no, don’t believe me; I could have, but I did not want to save myself. I wanted to perish; this was dearer to me than anything else and even now, even this minute, when I already know everything  Do you know that I was summoned to the Well-Doer?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But what he told me! Please realize that it was equivalent to it was as if someone should remove the floor from under you this minute, and you and everything here on the desk, the papers, the ink  the ink would splash out and cover everything with blots ”

“What else? What further? Hurry up, others are waiting!”