Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/39

We passed through a room where we found a few small children’s beds (children in those days were also private property). Then more rooms, glimmering mirrors, somber closets, unbearably loud-colored divans, an enormous “fireplace,” a large mahogany bed. Our contemporary beautiful, transparent, eternal glass was represented here only by pitiful, delicate, tiny squares of windows.

“And to think; here there was love ‘just so’; they burned and tortured themselves.” (Again the curtain of the eyes was lowered.) “What a stupid, uneconomical spending of human energy. Am I not right?”

She spoke as though reading my thoughts, but in her smile there remained always that irritating X. There behind the curtains something was going on, I don’t know what, but something that made me lose my patience. I wanted to quarrel with her, to scream at her (exactly, to scream), but I had to agree. It was impossible not to agree.

We stopped in front of a mirror. At that moment I saw only her eyes. An idea came to me: human beings are built as nonsensically as these stupid “apartments,” human heads are opaque, and there are only two very small windows that lead inside, the eyes. She seemed to have guessed my thoughts; she turned around: “Well, here they are, my eyes. . . . Well” (this suddenly, then silence).

There in front of me were two gloomy, dark windows and behind them, inside, such strange hidden life. I saw there only fire, burning like a peculiar “fireplace,” and unknown figures resembling . . .

All this was certainly very natural; I saw in her eyes the reflection of my own face. But my feelings were unnatural and not like me. Evidently the depressing influence of the surroundings was beginning to tell on me. I definitely felt fear. I felt as if I were trapped in a strange cage. I felt that I was caught in the wild hurricane of ancient life.

“Do you know . . .” said I-330. “Step for a moment into