Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/85

Rh RECORD FOURTEEN

“Mine”ImpossibleA Cold Floor

I shall continue to relate my adventures of yesterday. I was busy during the personal hour before retiring to bed, and thus I was unable to record everything last night. But everything is graven in me; especially, for some reason, and apparently forever, I shall remember that unbearably cold floor

I was expecting O-90 last evening, as it was her regular day. I went downstairs to the controller on duty to get a permit for the lowering of my curtains.

“What is the matter with you?” asked the controller.

“You seem so peculiar tonight.”

“I I am sick.”

Strictly speaking, I told her the truth. I certainly am sick. All this is an illness. Presently I remembered; of course, my certificate! I touched it in my pocket. Yes, there it was, rustling. Then all this did happen! It did actually happen!

I held out the paper to the controller. As I did so, I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. Without looking directly at her, I noticed with what an expression of surprise she gazed at me.

Then at twenty-one-thirty o’clock In the room to the left the curtains were lowered, and in the room to the right my neighbor was sitting over a book. His head is bald and covered with bulging lumps. His forehead is