Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/97

Rh “Incurable,” was the cut of the scissors.

“But more specifically, what is it? Somehow I cannot imagine—”

“You see how shall I put it? Are you a mathematician?”

“Yes.”

"Then you see imagine a plane, let us say this mirror. You and I are on its surface. You see? There we are, squinting our eyes to protect ourselves from the sunlight, or here is the bluish electric spark in that tube, there the shadow of that aero that just passed. All this is on the surface, is momentary only. Now imagine this very same surface softened by a flame so that nothing can glide over it any longer, so everything will instead penetrate into that mirror world which excites such curiosity in children. I assure you, children are not so foolish as we think they are! The surface becomes a volume, a body, a world. And inside the mirror—within you—there is the sunshine, and the whirlwind caused by the aero propeller, and your trembling lips and someone else’s lips also. You see, the cold mirror reflects, throws out, while this one absorbs; it keeps forever a trace of everything that touches it. Once you saw an imperceptible wrinkle on someone’s face, and this wrinkle is forever preserved within you. You may happen to hear in the silence a drop of water falling—and you will hear it forever!”

“Yes, yes, that is it!” I grasped his hand. I could hear drops of water dripping in the silence from the faucet of a washstand, and I knew at once it was forever.

“But tell me please, why suddenly suddenly, a soul? There was none, yet suddenly Why is it that no one has it, yet I ” I pressed the thin hand; I was afraid to loosen the safety belt.

“Why? Well, why don’t we grow feathers or wings, but have only shoulder blades, bases for wings? We have aeros; wings would only be in the way. Wings are needed