Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/66

Unbearably sweet lips. (I suppose it was the taste of the liqueur.) It was as though burning poison were being poured into me, and more, and more. . . .

I tore away from the earth and began revolving as an independent planet, down, down, following an incalculable curve. . . .

What happened next I am able to describe only in an approximate way, only by way of more or less suitable analogies.

It never occurred to me before but it is true: we who live on the earth, we are always walking over a seething red sea of fire which is hidden in the womb of the earth. We never think of it. But imagine the ground under our feet suddenly transformed into a thin glass shell; suddenly we should behold . . . !

I became glass-like and saw within myself. There were two selves in me. One, the former D-503, Number D-503; and the other . . . Before, that other used only to show his hairy paws from time to time, but now that whole other self left his shell. That shell was breaking, and in a moment . . .

Grasping the last straw (the arms of the chair) with all my strength, I asked loudly (so as to hear my first self), “Where, where did you get this poison?”

“Oh, this? A physician, one of my. . .”

“‘One of my! one of my’ what?” And my other self jumped up suddenly and yelled: “I wont allow it! I want . . . Because no one but me . . . I shall kill anyone who You . . .” I saw my other self grasp her rudely with I his hairy paws, tear the silk, and put his teeth in her flesh! . . . I remember exactly, his teeth!. . .

I do not remember how, but I-330 slipped away and I saw her straighten, her head raised high, her eyes overlaid by that cursed, impenetrable curtain. She stood leaning with her back against the closet door and listening to me.