Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/52

the “law” of ancient religion but the law of the United State). Our priest had a very powerful voice; a real hurricane would come out of the loud-speaker. And we children would yell the prescribed texts after him with all our lung power. We recalled how our scapegrace, R-13, used to stuff the priest with chewed paper; every word was thus accompanied by a paper wad shot out. Naturally, R- was punished, for what he did was undoubtedly wrong, but now we laughed heartily—by we I mean our triangle, R-, O-, and I. I must confess, I, too.

“And what if he had been a living one? Like the ancient ones, eh? We’d have b . . . b . . .” a fountain running from the fat bubbling lips. The sun was shining through the ceiling, the sun above, the sun from the sides, its reflection from below. O- on R-13’s lap and minute drops of sunlight in O-’s blue eyes. Somehow my heart warmed up. The square root of minus one became silent and motionless. . . .

“Well, how is your Integral? Will you soon hop off to enlighten the inhabitants of the planets? You’d better hurry up, my boy, or we poets will have produced such a devilish lot that even your Integral will be unable to lift the cargo. ‘Every day from eight to eleven’ . . .” R- wagged his head and scratched the back of it. The back of his head is square; it looks like a little valise (I recalled for some reason an ancient painting “In the Cab”). I felt more lively.

“You, too, are writing for the Integral? Tell me about it. What are you writing about? What did you write today, for instance?”

“Today I did not write; today I was busy with something else.” (“B-b-busy” sprinkled straight into my face.)

“What else?”

R- frowned. “What? What? Well, if you insist I’ll tell you. I was busy with the Death Sentence. I was putting the Death Sentence into verse. An idiot—and to be frank, one of our poets. . . . For two years we all lived side by