We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

YOU WILL SUBJUGATE THEM TO THE BENEFICENT YOKE OF REASON. IF THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT WE BRING THEM IS MATHEMATICALLY INFALLIBLE HAPPINESS, WE WILL BE IMPELLED TO FORCE THEM TO BE HAPPY. BUT WE WILL TRY WORDS BEFORE RESORTING TO WEAPONS.

there’s only one conclusion: the instinct for unfreedom has been an organic part of human nature since the beginning of time, and we, in our current way of life, are only now consciously . . .

“Listen: we even have the same thoughts. Because today, nobody is just some ‘one,’ everybody is ‘one of.’ And we’re all so alike . . .” She: “Are you sure about that?”

She looked me up and down like she was weighing me on a scale, the horns on her eyebrows flared up again.

O is . . . how should I put it . . . the speed of her tongue is miscalibrated. The delay on the tongue should always be a few seconds over the speed of thought and never the other way around.

Doesn’t it follow that the most settled way of life (ours) is also the most perfect (as ours is)?

Yes, people once roamed the Earth, roving from pole to pole, but that was in prehistoric times, when there were still nations, wars, trade, discoveries of various Americas. Why would we ever need any of that?

All of us (and perhaps, even you) have read the greatest surviving classic of ancient literature as schoolchildren: The Train Schedule.

But—call me an idealist and a dreamer—but I firmly believe: sooner or later, we will find the true general formula for these hours as well, and all 86,400 seconds of every day will finally be accounted for by the Table.

And isn’t it just as absurd that the state (while daring to call itself a state!) took no control over people’s sex lives?

But, first of all: I am incapable of joking.

They could only create after working themselves up into fits of so-called inspiration, an obscure form of epilepsy.

Isn’t it clear: joy and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness.

One State began its incursion on the other master, Love. This elemental force was finally conquered, i.e., organized and mathematized, when, nearly 300 years ago, our historic Lex sexualis decreed: “Every number has the right to make use of any other number as a sexual commodity.”

we’ve redirected all of the forces of nature into the proper channels—there can be no catastrophes anymore.

I-330 . . . she’s the one irritating me, repelling me, practically scaring me. And that was precisely why I said: yes.

We walked through a room with small children’s beds (in that era, children were also private property).

Freedom and crime are as inextricably linked as . . . well, the motion of an aero and its velocity: when an aero’s velocity = 0, it doesn’t move; when a person’s freedom = 0, he doesn’t commit any crimes. That much is clear. The only way to eradicate crime is to eradicate freedom.

“I serve and will continue to serve true knowledge,” I said, furrowing my brow. I don’t like or understand jokes, and R-13 has this stupid habit of joking.

Their God gave them nothing but endless, torturous searching: He didn’t come up with anything better than sacrificing Himself for some unknown reason.