Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/180

Dear . . . she is such a dear! . . . “Without fail!” I was smiling, and I could not stop! I felt I would carry that smile with me into the street like a light above my head.

Outside the wind ran over me, whirling, whistling, whipping, but I felt even more cheerful. “All right, go on, go on moaning and groaning! The Walls cannot be torn down.” Flying leaden clouds broke over my head . . . well, let them! They could not eclipse the sun! We chained it to the zenith like so many Joshuas, sons of Nun!

At the corner a group of such Joshuas, sons of Nun, were standing with their foreheads pasted to the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table, a Number already lay. You could see two naked soles emerging from under the sheet in a yellow angle. . . . White medics bent over his head—a white hand, a stretched-out hand holding a syringe filled with something. . . .

“And you, what are you waiting for?” I asked nobody in particular, or rather all of them.

“And you?” Someone’s round head turned to me.

“I? Oh, afterward! I must first . . .” Somewhat confused, I left the place. I really had to see I-330 first. But why first? I could not explain to myself. . . .

The docks. The Integral, bluish like ice, was glistening and sparkling. The engine was caressingly grumbling, repeating some one word, as if it were my word, a familiar one. I bent down and stroked the long, cold tube of the motor. “Dear! What a dear tube! Tomorrow it will come to life, tomorrow for the first time it will tremble with burning, flaming streams in its bowels.”

With what eyes would I have looked at the glass monster had everything remained as it was yesterday? If I knew that tomorrow at twelve I should betray it, yes, betray . . . . Someone behind cautiously touched my elbow. I turned around. The plate-like, flat face of the Second Builder.

“Do you know already?” he asked.