Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/111

I came home as the sun was setting. The pink dust of evening was covering the glass of the walls, the golden peak of the Accumulating Tower, the voices and smiles of the Numbers. Isn’t it strange: the passing rays of the evening sun fall to the earth at the same angle as the awakening rays of the morning, yet they make everything seem so different; the pink tinge is different. At sunset it is so quiet, somewhat melancholy; at sunrise it is resounding, boisterous.

When I entered the hall downstairs I saw U-, the controller. She took a letter from the heaps of envelopes covered with pink dust and handed it to me. I repeat: she is a very respectable woman, and I am sure she has only the very best feelings toward me. . . . Yet, every time I see those cheeks hanging down, which look like the gills of a fish, I . . .

Holding out her dry hand with the letter, U- sighed. But that sigh only very slightly moved in me the curtains which separate me from the rest of the world. I was completely engrossed by the envelope which trembled in my hand. I had no doubt that it was a letter from I-330.

At that moment I heard another sigh, such a deliberate one, underscored with two lines, that I raised my eyes from the envelope and saw a tender, cloudy smile coming from between the gills, through the bashful blinds of lowered eyes. And then:

“You poor, poor dear!” A sigh underscored with three lines, and a glance at the letter, an imperceptible glance. (What was in the letter she naturally knew, ex officio.)

“No, really? . . . Why?”

“No, no, dear, I know better than you. For a long time I have watched you, and I see that you need someone with years of experience of life to accompany you.”

I felt all pasted around by her smile. It was like a plaster upon the wounds which were to be inflicted upon me by the letter I held in my hand. Finally, through the bashful blinds of her eyes, .she said in a very low voice: “I shall