We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Okay, this is really absurd, this really actually should be crossed out: we have channeled all the forces of nature—there cannot be any future catastrophes. And now everything is clear to me: that strange feeling inside is all due to that very quadratic predicament of mine, about which I spoke at the beginning of this record. And there is no X in me (it’s not possible). It is simply that I am afraid that some kind of X exists in you, unknown readers of mine. But I believe you won’t judge me too harshly. I believe you will understand that it is more difficult for me to write than for any author in the course of all human history: some wrote for their contemporaries, others for their descendants, but no one ever wrote for their ancestors or beings who resemble their own distant, savage ancestors . . .