We - Yevgeny Zamyatin (whitelam books txt) 📗

At that moment again I felt (first near the back of my head, then on my left ear) the warm, tender breath of the Guardian-Angel. He apparently noticed that the book on my lap had long been closed and that my thoughts were somewhere very far.⁠ ⁠… Well, I am ready this minute to spread before him the pages of my brain. This gives one such a feeling of tranquility and joy. I remember I even turned around and gazed long and questioningly into his eyes; but either he did not understand, or he did not want to understand me. He did not ask me anything.⁠ ⁠… The only thing left for me is to relate everything to you, my unknown readers. You are to me now as dear and as near and as far out of reach as he was at that moment.

This was my way of thinking: from the part to the whole⁠—R-13 is the part; the whole is our Institution of State Poets and Authors. I thought: how was it that the ancients did not notice the utter absurdity of their prose and poetry? The gigantic, magnificent power of the artistic word was spent by them in vain. It is really droll; anybody wrote whatever happened to come into his head! It was as foolish as the fact that in the days of the ancients the ocean blindly splashed at the shore for twenty-four hours without interruption or use. The millions of kilogram-meters of energy which were hidden in the waves were used only for the stimulation of sweethearts! We obtained electricity from the amorous whisper of the waves! We made a domestic animal out of that sparkling, foaming, rabid one! And in the same manner we domesticated and harnessed the wild element of poetry. Now poetry is no longer the unpardonable whistling of nightingales but a State Service! Poetry is a commodity.

Our famous “Mathematical Norms”! Without them in our schools, how could we love so sincerely and dearly our four rules of arithmetic? And “Thorns!” This is a classical image: the Guardians are thorns about a rose; thorns that guard our tender State-Flower from coarse hands. Whose heart could resist, could remain indifferent to see and hear the lips of our children recite like a prayer: “A bad boy caught the rose with his hand but the thorn of steel pricked him like a needle; the bad boy cried and ran home,” etc., etc. And the “Daily Odes to the Well-Doer!” Who, having read them, will not bow piously before the unselfish service of that Number of all Numbers? And the dreadful red “Flowers of Court Sentences!” And the immortal tragedy, “Those Who Come Late to Work!” And the popular book, “Stanzas on Sex-Hygiene!”

Our whole life in all its complexity and beauty is thus stamped forever in the gold of words. Our poets do not soar any longer in the unknown; they have descended to earth and they march with us, keeping step to the accompaniment of our austere and mechanical March of the musical State Tower. Their lyre is the morning rubbing-sound of the electric toothbrushes, and the threatening crack of the electric sparks coming from the Machine of the Well-Doer, and the magnificent echo of the Hymn of the United State, and the intimate ringing of the crystalline, shining washbasins, and the stimulating rustle of the falling curtains, and the joyous voices of the newest cookbooks, and the almost imperceptible whisper of the street membranes.⁠ ⁠…

Our gods are here, below. They are with us in the Bureau, in the kitchen, in the shops, in the restrooms. The gods have become like us, ergo we have become like gods. And we shall come to you, my unknown readers on another planet, we shall come to you to make your life as godlike, as rational and as correct as ours.⁠ ⁠…

Fog⁠—Thou⁠—A decidedly absurd adventure.

I awoke at dawn. The rose-colored firmament looked into my eyes. Everything was beautiful, round. “O-90 is to come tonight. Surely I am healthy again.” I smiled and fell asleep. The Morning Bell! I got up; everything looked different. Through the glass of the ceiling, through the walls, nothing could be seen but fog⁠—fog everywhere, strange clouds, becoming heavier and nearer; the boundary between earth and sky disappeared. Everything seemed to be floating and thawing and falling.⁠ ⁠… Not a thing to hold to. No houses to be seen; they all were dissolved in the fog like crystals of salt in water. On the sidewalks and inside the houses dark figures like suspended particles in a strange milky solution, were hanging, below, above⁠—up to the tenth floor. Everything seemed to be covered with smoke, as though a fire were somewhere raging noiselessly.

At eleven-forty-five exactly (I looked at the clock particularly at that time to catch the figures, to save at least the figures) at eleven-forty-five, just before leaving, according to our Table of Hours, to go and occupy myself with physical labor, I dropped into my room for a moment. Suddenly the telephone rang. A voice⁠—a long needle slowly penetrating my heart:

“Oh, you are at home? I am very glad! Wait for me at the corner. We shall go together.⁠ ⁠… Where? Well, you’ll see.”

“You know perfectly well that I am going to work now.”

“You know perfectly well that you’ll do as I say! Au revoir. In two minutes!⁠ ⁠…”

I stood at the corner. I had to wait to try to make clear to her that only the United State directs me, not she. “You’ll do as I say!” How sure she is! One hears it in her voice. And what if⁠ ⁠… ?

Unifs, dull gray as if woven of damp fog would appear for a second at my side and then soundlessly redissolve. I was unable to turn my eyes away from the clock.⁠ ⁠… I seemed myself to have become that sharp, quivering hand which marked the seconds. Ten, eight minutes⁠ ⁠… three⁠ ⁠… two minutes to twelve.⁠ ⁠… Of course! I was