Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/40

the next room.” Her voice came from there, from inside, from behind the dark window eyes, where the fireplace was blazing.

I went in, sat down. From a shelf on the wall there looked straight into my face, somewhat smiling, the snub-nosed, asymmetrical physiognomy of one of the ancient poets; I think it was Pushkin.

“Why do I sit here enduring this smile with such resignation, and what is this all about? Why am I here? And why all these strange sensations, this irritating, repellent female, this strange game?”

The door of the closet slammed; there was the rustle of silk. I felt it difficult to restrain myself from getting up and, and . . . I don’t remember exactly; probably I wanted to tell her a number of disagreeable things. But she had already appeared.

She was dressed in a short, bright-yellowish dress, black hat, black stockings. The dress was of light silk. I saw clearly very long black stockings above the knees, an uncovered neck, and the shadow between. . . .

“It’s clear that you want to seem original. But is it possible that you—?”

“It is clear,” interrupted I-330, “that to be original means to stand out among others; consequently, to be original means to violate the law of equality. What was called in the language of the ancients ‘to be common’ is with us only the fulfilling of one’s duty. For—”

“Yes, yes, exactly,” I interrupted impatiently, “and there no use, no use . . .”

She came near the bust of the snub-nosed poet, lowered the curtain on the wild fire of her eyes, and said (this time I think she was really in earnest, or perhaps she merely wanted to soften my impatience with her, but she said a very reasonable thing):

“Don’t you think it surprising that once people could stand types like this? Not only stand them, but worship them? What a slavish spirit, don’t you think so?”