Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/67

I remember I was on the floor; I embraced her limbs, kissed her knees, and cried supplicatingly, “At once, right away, right away.”

Sharp teeth. . . . The sharp, mocking triangle of the brows. . . . She bent over and in silence unbuttoned my badge.

“Yes, yes, dear—dear.”

I began hastily to remove my unif. But I-330, silent as before, lifted my badge to my eyes, showing me the clock upon it. It was twenty-two-twenty-five.

I became cold. I knew what it meant to be out in the street after twenty-two-thirty. My insanity disappeared at once. I was again I. I saw clearly one thing: I hated her, hated her, hated . . . Without saying good-by, without looking back, I ran out of the room. Hurriedly trying to fasten the badge back in its place, I ran down the stairs (I was afraid lest someone notice me in the elevator), and tore out into a deserted street.

Everything was in its place; life so simple, ordinary, orderly. Glittering glass houses, pale glass sky, a greenish, motionless night. But under that cool glass something wild, something red and hairy, was silently seething. I was gasping for breath, but I continued to run so as not to be late.

Suddenly I felt that my badge which I had hurriedly pinned on was detaching itself; it came off and fell to the sidewalk. I bent over to pick it up and in the momentary silence I heard somebody’s steps. I turned. Someone small and hunched was disappearing around the corner. At least so it seemed. I started to run as fast as I could. The wind whistled in my ears. At the entrance to my house I stopped and looked at the clock; one minute to twenty-two-thirty! I listened; nobody behind. It was my foolish imagination, the effect of the poison.

The night was full of torture. My bed seemed to lift itself under me, then to fall again, then up again! I used