Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/112

think about it, dear. I shall think it over. And be sure that if I feel myself strong enough . . .”

“Great Well-Doer! Is it possible that is my lot? . . . Is it possible that she means to say, that she? . . .”

My eyes were dimmed and filled with thousands of sinusoids; the letter was trembling. I went near the light, to the wall. There the light of the sun was going out; from the sun the dark, sad, pink dust was falling thicker and thicker, covering the floor, my hands, the letter. I opened the envelope and found the signature as fast as I could—the first wound! It was not I-330; it was O-90! And another wound: in the right-hand corner a slovenly splash, a blot! I cannot bear blots. It matters little whether they are made by ink or by . . . Well, it doesn’t matter by what. Heretofore, such a blot would have had only a disagreeable effect, disagreeable to the eyes; but now—why did that small gray blot seem like a cloud, and seem to spread about me a leaden, bluish darkness? Or was it again the “soul” at work? Here is a transcript of the letter:

You know, or perhaps you don’t . . . I cannot write well. Little it matters! Now you know that without you there is for me not a single day, a single morning, a single spring, for R- is only . . . Well, that is of no importance to you. At any rate, I am very grateful to him, for without him, alone all these days, I don’t know what would . . . During these last few days and nights I have lived through ten years, or perhaps twenty years. My room seemed to me not square but round; I walk around without end, round after round, always the same thing, not a door to escape through. I cannot live without you because I love you; and I should not, I cannot be with you any more—because I love you! Because I see and I understand that you need no one now, no one in the world save that other, and you must realize that it is precisely because I love you that I must . . .

I need another two or three days in order to paste together the fragments of myself and thus restore at least something