Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/38

While we were ascending the wide, dark stairs, I-330 said, “I love her, that old woman.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps for her mouth—or perhaps for nothing, just so.”

I shrugged my shoulders. She continued walking upstairs with a faint smile, or perhaps without a smile at all.

I felt very guilty. It is clear that there must not be “love, just so,” but “love because of.” For all elements of nature should be . . .

“It’s clear . . .” I began, but stopped at that word and cast a furtive look at I-330. Did she notice it or not? She looked somewhere, down; her eyes were closed like curtains.

It struck me suddenly: evening about twenty-two; you walk on the avenue and among the brightly lighted, transparent, cubic cells are dark spaces, lowered curtains, and there behind the curtains . . . What has she behind her curtains? Why did she phone me today? Why did she bring me here? and all this. . . .

She opened a heavy, squeaking, opaque door and we found ourselves in a somber disorderly space (they called it an “apartment”). The same strange “royal” musical instrument and a wild, unorganized, crazy loudness of colors and forms like their ancient music. A white plane above, dark blue walls, red, green, orange bindings of ancient books, yellow bronze candelabra, a statue of Buddha, furniture with lines distorted by epilepsy, impossible to reduce to any clear equation.

I could hardly bear that chaos. But my companion apparently possessed a stronger constitution.

“This is my most beloved—” she suddenly caught herself (again a smile, bite, and white sharp teeth)—“to be more exact, the most nonsensical of all ‘apartments.’ ”

“Or, to be most exact, of all the States. Thousands of microscopic States, fighting eternal wars, pitiless like—”

“Oh, yes, it’s clear,” said I-330 with apparent sincerity.