We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

EVENING. 22:00 It is with difficulty that I hold this pen in my hand: such is the immense fatigue after all the head-spinning events of this morning. Can it be true that the safeguarding, age-old walls of the One State have caved in? Can it be true that we are again shelterless in the savage state of freedom—like our distant predecessors? Can it be true that there is no Benefactor? “No” . . . on the Day of the One Vote . . . “No”?

“And tomorrow . . .” She is breathing greedily through gritted, sparkling, sharp teeth. “. . . And tomorrow—who knows what happens? Do you get it? I don’t know and no one knows—it’s all unknown! You understand, that this is the end to the Known? This is the new, the improbable, the unpredictable.”

Are you familiar with this strange condition? It is night and you have fallen asleep and then you open your eyes in the blackness and suddenly: you have become lost and you start to feel around quickly, quickly looking for something familiar and solid—the wall, the lamp, the chair. I felt around just like that in the State Gazette —quickly, quickly—and here is what I found: YESTERDAY, THE LONG AND IMPATIENTLY AWAITED DAY OF THE ONE VOTE TOOK PLACE. FOR THE 48TH TIME THE BENEFACTOR, WHO HAS PROVEN HIS UNSHAKABLE WISDOM MANY TIMES OVER, WAS UNANIMOUSLY CHOSEN. THE CELEBRATION WAS CLOUDED BY A SLIGHT DISTURBANCE WROUGHT BY THE ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS, WHICH, NATURALLY, DEPRIVES THEM OF THE RIGHT TO BECOME BRICKS IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE ONE STATE, RENEWED YESTERDAY. IT IS CLEAR TO EACH OF US THAT TAKING THEIR VOICES INTO ACCOUNT WOULD BE AS RIDICULOUS AS TAKING THE ACCIDENTAL COUGHS OF SICK PEOPLE IN A CONCERT AUDIENCE AS A PART OF A MAJESTIC, HEROIC SYMPHONY . . .

From a few pages earlier: “I ask those who vote ‘Yes’ to please raise your hands.” If only I could look him straight in the eye, like before, with devotion: “Here I am, my whole self. My whole self! Take me!” But I couldn’t now summon the courage. With effort, as if all my joints had rusted, I raised my hand. The rustling of millions of hands. Someone’s stifled “Ah!” And I could feel that something had already started and it was falling headlong, but I didn’t understand what it was, and I didn’t have the strength to—I didn’t dare look . . . “Who says ‘No’?” This was always the most magnificent moment of the holiday: everyone continues to sit, immobile, joyfully bowing their heads to the beneficial yoke of the Cipher of ciphers. But now, to my horror, I heard another rustling: a very light sound, like a sigh, but more audible than the brass pipes of the Hymn earlier. It’s like the last sigh of a person’s life—barely audible—and yet everyone’s faces blanch on hearing it, and cold drops appear on their foreheads . . . I raised my eyes and . . . In the hundredth part of a second, the hairspring of a clock, I saw: thousands of hands wave up—“No”—and fall again.

TODAY AT 12:00 THE JOINT SESSION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BUREAU, THE BUREAU OF MEDICINE, AND THE BUREAU OF GUARDIANS WILL TAKE PLACE. IN THE COMING DAYS AN IMPORTANT STATE ACT WILL BE EFFECTED. Yes, the walls are still standing—here they are—I can feel them with my hands. And the strange feeling that I am lost, that I don’t know where I am, that I have lost my way, has already gone, and it’s not half-surprising that I see a blue sky, a round sun, and everyone, as usual, going off to work.

“Well, then, will we finish loading within the week?” This was me to the Second Builder. His face was porcelain, painted with sweet blue and tender pink little flowers (eyes, lips), but today they were somehow off-color, washed out. We consider this question aloud, but I suddenly cut off in mid-word and stand, mouth agape: high up, under the cupola, on the light blue block raised by the crane, was a barely noticeable, little white square— a glued scrap of paper. And I was shaking all over—maybe, from laughter—yes, I could hear myself laughing (have you ever done that, heard yourself laughing?). “No, okay, listen . . .” I say. “Imagine that you are in an ancient airplane, the altimeter shows five thousand meters and the wing breaks off, you’re like a tumbler pigeon falling, and on your way down you are calculating: ‘Tomorrow . . . from twelve to two I will . . . from two to six . . . six o’clock is dinnertime . . .’ Well, isn’t that funny? And, can you see, that’s exactly what we’re doing?!”