We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Tomorrow we shall again hand over to our Well-Doer the keys to the impregnable fortress of our happiness. Certainly this in no way resembles the disorderly, unorganized election-days of the ancients, on which (it seems so funny!) they did not even know in advance the result of the election.

“Tomorrow, nobody knows what ... do you understand? Neither I nor anyone else knows; it is unknown! Do you realize what a joy it is? Do you realize that all that was certain has come to an end? Now ... things will be new, improbable, unforeseen!”

The celebration was clouded by a little confusion, created by the enemies of happiness, who by their action naturally lost the right to be the bricks for the foundation of the renovated United State. It is clear to everybody that to take into consideration their votes would mean to consider as a part of a magnificent, heroic symphony the accidental cough of a sick person who happened to be in a concert hall.”

For it was clear to me that while I was waiting there in the corridors, they somehow had blasted and destroyed the Green Wall, and from behind it everything rushed in and splashed over our city which until then had been kept clean of that lower world. I must have said something of this sort to I-330. She laughed. “No, we have simply come out beyond the Green Wall.”

“Down with the Integral! Down!” “No, brothers, not ‘down’. The Integral must be ours. And it shall be ours. On the day when it first sets sail into the sky, we shall be on board. For the Builder of the Integral is with us. He left the walls, he came with me here in order to be with us. Long live the Builder!”

“Yes, yes, precisely. All must become insane; we must become insane as soon as possible! We must; I know it.”

Our heart is nothing else than an ideal pump: a compression, i.e., a shrinking at the moment of pumping, is a technical absurdity. Hence it is clear how essentially absurd, unnatural and pathological are all these “loves” and “pities,” etc., etc., which create that compression....

Well then, name the last number!” “What is ... I ... I cannot understand, which last?” “The last one, the highest, the largest.” “But I-330, it is absurd! Since the number of numbers is infinite, how can there be a last one?” “And why then do you think there is a last revolution? There is no last revolution, their number is infinite.... The ‘last one’ is a children’s story. Children are afraid of the infinite, and it is necessary that children should not be frightened, so that they may sleep through the night.”

It was clear to me that all were saved but that there was no salvation for me. For I do not want salvation....

Absurd, because white and black cannot be one, duty and crime cannot coincide. Or perhaps there is no black and white in life, but everything depends upon the first logical premise? If the premise is that I unlawfully gave her a child....

“Because I ... I was afraid that if I did you might ... you would stop lov— Oh, I cannot, I could not!” I understood. It was the truth. Absurd, ridiculous, human truth. I opened the door.

I ask: what was it that man from his diaper age dreamed of, tormented himself for, prayed for? He longed for that day when someone would tell him what happiness is and then would chain him to it. What else are we doing now? The ancient dream about a paradise....

If only I had a mother as the ancients had,—my mother, mine, for whom I should be not the Builder of the Integral and not D-530, not a molecule of the United State but merely a living human piece, a piece of herself, a trampled, smothered, a cast-off piece.... And though I were driving the nails into the cross or being nailed to it (perhaps it is the same), she would hear what no one else could hear; her old grown-together wrinkled lips....

Above, everything was perishing; the greatest civilization, the most rational in human history was crumbling,—but here, by some irony everything remained as before, beautiful. The walls shone; water murmured cosily and like the water,—the unseen, transparent music.... Only think of it! All this is doomed; all this will be covered with grass, some day; only myths will remain....

“Yes, yes, I tell you so. There is no infinity. If the universe is infinite, then the average density of matter must equal zero, but as it is not zero, we know, consequently the universe is finite; it is spherical in form

“Listen!” (I pulled my neighbor). “Yes, listen, I say. There where your finite universe ends, what is there? What?” He had no time to answer. From above, down the steps, stamping....

Next day, I, D-503, appeared before the Well-Doer and told him everything known to me about the enemies of happiness. Why before it seemed hard for me to go, I cannot understand. The only explanation seems to be my illness,—my soul.

But on the transverse avenue Forty, we succeeded in establishing a temporary Wall of high voltage waves. And I hope we win. More than that; I am certain we shall win. For Reason must win. THE END