Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/205

Railway. At the entrance someone passed me and said, “Not running. No trains today . . . there!” I descended. A sort of general delirium was reigning. The glitter of cut-crystal suns; the platform packed closely with heads. An empty, torpid train.

In the silence—a voice. I could not see her but I knew, I knew that intense, living, flexible, whip-like, flogging voice! I felt there that sharp triangle of brows drawn to the temples. . . .

“Let me! Let me reach her! I must!. . .”

Someone’s tentacles caught my arm, my shoulders. I was nailed. In the silence I heard:

“No. Go up to them. There they will cure you; there they will overfeed you with that leavened happiness. Satiated, you will slumber peacefully, organized, keeping time, and snoring sweetly. Is it possible that you do not hear yet that great symphony of snoring? Foolish people! Don’t you realize that they want to liberate you from these gnawing, worm-like, torturing question marks? And you remain standing here and listening to me? Quick! Up! To the Great Operation! What is your concern, if I remain here alone? What does it matter to you if I want to struggle, hopelessly struggle? So much the better! What does it matter to you that I do not want others to desire for me? I want to desire for myself. If I desire the impossible . . .”

Another voice, slow, heavy:

“Ah, the impossible! Which means to run after your stupid fancies; those fancies would whirl from under your very noses like a tail. No, we shall catch that tail, and then . . .”

“And then—swallow it and fall snoring; a new tail will become necessary. They say the ancients had a certain animal which they called ‘ass.’ In order to make it go forward they would attach a carrot to a bow held in front of its nose, so that it could not reach it. . . . If it had caught and swallowed it . . .”