Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/227

own hands, I dashed madly out, past loud voices, past steps and mouths . . .

I do not remember how I got into one of the public rest rooms, in a station of the Underground Railway. Above, everything was perishing; the greatest civilization, the most rational in human history was crumbling, but here, by some irony, everything remained as before, beautiful. The walls shone; water murmured cozily; and like the water, the unseen, transparent music . . . Only think of it! All this is doomed; all this will be covered with grass someday; only myths will remain . . .

I moaned aloud. At the same instant I felt someone gently patting my knee. It was from the left; it was my neighbor who occupied a seat on my left—an enormous forehead, a bald parabola, yellow, unintelligible lines of wrinkles on his forehead, those lines about me.

“I understand you. I understand completely,” he said. “Yet you must calm yourself. You must. It will return. It will inevitably return. It is only important that everybody should learn of my discovery. You are the first to whom I talk about it. I have calculated that there is no infinity! No!”

I looked at him wildly.

“Yes, yes, I tell you so. There is no infinity. If the universe is infinite, then the average density of matter must equal zero; but since we know it is not zero, therefore the universe is finite; it is spherical in form, and the square of its radius—R²—is equal to the average density multiplied by . . . The only thing left is to calculate the numerical coefficient and then . . . Do you realize what it means? It means that everything is final, everything is simple . . . But you, my honored sir, you disturb me, you prevent my finishing my calculations by your yelling!”

I do not know which shattered me more, his discovery, or his positiveness at that apocalyptic hour. Only then did I notice that he had a notebook in his hands, and a logarithmic dial. I understood then that even if everything