We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

You, the readers of these records, no matter who you are, the sun is still above you. And if you’ve ever been sick like I am now, then you know what the sun is like—what it can be like. You know that in the morning, the sun is rosy, transparent, warm gold. And the air itself is a little rosy, all steeped in the sun’s gentle blood. Everything is alive: stones are living and soft; iron is living and warm; people are alive and each and every one is smiling. It may happen that an hour later everything might disappear and an hour later, that rosy blood might drain away, but for now everything is alive. And I can see: something is pulsing and flowing through the glass essence of the Integral. I can see: the Integral is contemplating its great and terrifying future, its heavy cargo of inescapable happiness, which it will carry up there, up to you, the unknown, you, who eternally search and never find. You will find you will be happy—you are obliged to be happy—and you haven’t much longer to wait.