Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/182

“Yes,” I said. “A while ago, while passing along the avenue, man I saw a walking ahead of me. His shadow stretched along the pavement—and think of it! His shadow was luminous! I think—more than that, I am absolutely certain—that tomorrow all shadows will disappear. Not a shadow from any person or any thing! The sun will be shining through everything.”

She, gently and earnestly:

“You are a dreamer! I would not allow my children in school to talk that way.”

She told me something about the children: that they were all led in one herd to the Operation; that it was necessary to bind them afterward with ropes; that one must love pitilessly, “yes, pitilessly,” and that she thought she might finally decide to . . .

She smoothed out the grayish-blue fold of the unif that fell between her knees, swiftly pasted her smiles all over me, and went out.

Fortunately the sun did not stop today. The sun was running. It was already sixteen o’clock. . . . I was knocking at the door, my heart was knocking. . . .

“Come in!”

I threw myself upon the floor near her chair, to embrace her limbs, to lift my head upward and look into her eyes, first into one, then into the other, and in each of them to see the reflection of myself in wonderful captivity. . . .

There beyond the wall it looked stormy, there the clouds were leaden—let them be! My head was overcrowded with impetuous words, and I was speaking aloud, and flying with the sun I knew not where. . . . No, now we knew where we were flying; planets were following me, planets sparkling with flame and populated with fiery, singing flowers, and mute planets, blue ones where rational stones were unified into one organized society, and planets which like our own earth had already reached the apex of one hundred-per-cent happiness.

Suddenly, from above: