Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/188

I dashed to the entrance of a house to stop to catch my breath, my back close to the door—and suddenly, like a splinter borne by the wind, a human being was thrown toward me.

“All the while I . . . I have been following you. I do not want . . . do you see? I do not want . . . I am ready to . . .”

Small round hands on my sleeves, round dark blue eyes—it was O-90. She just slipped along my body like a unif which, its hanger broken, slips along the wall to fall upon the floor. Like a little bundle she crumpled below me on the cold doorstep, and I stood over her, stroking her head, her face. My hands were wet. I felt as if I were very big and she very small, a small part of myself. I felt something quite different from what I feel toward I-330. I think the ancients must have had similar feelings toward their private children.

Below, filtering through her hands with which she was covering her face, a voice came to me:

“Every night I . . . I cannot! If they cure me . . . Every night I sit in the darkness alone and think of him, and of what he will look like when I . . . If I am cured I would have nothing to live with—do you understand me? You must . . . you must . . .”

An absurd feeling, yet it was there; I really must! Absurd, because this “duty” of mine was nothing but another crime. Absurd, because white and black cannot be one, duty and crime cannot coincide. Or perhaps there is no black and white in life, but everything depends upon the first logical premise? If the premise is that I unlawfully gave her a child . . .

“It’s all right, but don’t, only don’t . . .” I said, “Of course I understand. . . . I must take you to I-330, as I once offered to, so that she . . .”

“Yes.” (This in a low voice, without uncovering her face.)

I helped her rise. Silently we went along the darkening street, each busy with his own thoughts, or perhaps with the same thought. . . . We walked between silent,