Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/21

but again there was something in her face or in her voice . . .

With an abruptness unusual for me, I said, “Why, ‘alas’? Science is developing and if not now, then within fifty or one hundred years—”

“Even the noses will—”

“Yes, noses!” This time I almost shouted, “Since there is still a reason, no matter what, for envy. . . . Since my nose is button-like and someone else’s is—”

“Well, your nose is rather classic, as they would have said in ancient days, although your hands— No, no, show me your hands!”

I hate to have anyone look at my hands; they are covered with long hair—a stupid atavism. I stretched out my hand and said as indifferently as I could, “Apelike.”

She glanced at my hand, then at my face.

“No, a very curious harmony.”

She weighed me with her eyes as though with scales. The little horns again appeared at the corners of her brows.

“He is registered in my name,” exclaimed O-90 with a rosy smile.

I made a grimace. Strictly speaking, she was out of order. This dear O-, how shall I say it? The speed of her tongue is not correctly calculated; the speed per second of her tongue should be slightly less than the speed per second of her thoughts—at any rate not the reverse.

At the end of the avenue the big bell of the Accumulating Tower resounded seventeen. The personal hour was at an end. I-330 was leaving us with that S-like he-Number. He has such a respectable, and I noticed then, such a familiar, face. I must have met him somewhere, but where I could not remember. Upon leaving me I-330 said with the same X-like smile:

“Drop in day after tomorrow at auditorium 112.”

I shrugged my shoulders: “If I am assigned to the auditorium you just named—”