Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/136

through centuries, as we have done with our intelligence, it might perhaps have been transformed into something very precious.”

And I think she is right! How could she be wrong at that moment?

“ . . . And for this foolishness of yours and for what you did yesterday during the walk, I love you the more, much more.”

“Then why did you torture me? Why would you not come? Why did you send me the pink check and make me—?”

“Perhaps I wanted to test you. Perhaps I must be sure that you will do anything I wish, that you are completely mine.”

“Yes, completely.”

She took my face, my whole self, between her palms, lifted my head.

“And how about, ‘It is the duty of every honest Number’? Eh?”

Sweet, sharp white teeth—a smile. In the open cup of the armchair she was like a bee, sting and honey combined.

Yes, duty. . . . I turned over in my mind the pages of my records; indeed there is not a thought about the fact that strictly speaking I should . . .

I was silent. Exaltedly, and probably stupidly, I smiled, looking into the pupils of her eyes. I followed first one eye and then the other, and in each of them I saw myself, a millimetric self imprisoned in those tiny rainbow cells. Then again the lips and the sweet pain of blooming.

In each Number of the United State there is an unseen metronome that tick-tocks silently; without looking at the clock we know exactly the time of day within five minutes. But now my metronome had stopped, and I did not know how much time had passed. In fright I grasped my badge with its clock from under the pillow. Glory be to the Well-Doer! I had twenty minutes more! But those minutes