Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/72

still insist that that I of before is the real one; my I of late is, certainly, only an illness.)

Apparently R- read my thought in my face; he put his hand on my shoulders and laughed: “Oh, you! Adam! By the way, about Eve . . .” He searched for something in his pockets, took out a little book, turned over a few leaves, and said, “For the day after tomorrow—oh, no, two days from now—O-90 has a pink check on you. How about it? . . . As before? . . . You want her to?”

“Of course, of course!”

“All right then, I’ll tell her You see she herself is very bashful. . . . What a funny story! You see, for me she has only a pink-check affection, but for you . . . And you, you did not even come to tell us how a fourth member sneaked into our triangle! Who is it? Repent, sinner! Come on!”

A curtain arose inside me; rustle of silk, green bottle, lips . . . For no reason whatsoever I exclaimed (oh, why didn’t I restrain myself at that moment?), “Tell me, R-, did you ever have an opportunity to try nicotine or alcohol?”

R- sucked in his lips, looked at me from under his brows. I distinctly heard his thoughts: “Friend though he is, yet . . .” And he answered:

“What shall I say? Strictly speaking, no. But I know a woman . . .”

“I-330?” I cried.

“What! You? You, also?” R- was chuckled, ready to splash over.

My mirror was hanging in such a way that in order to see R- clearly I had to turn and look across the table. From my armchair I could see now only my own forehead and eyebrows. Then I, the real I, suddenly saw in the mirror a broken, quivering line of brow: I, the real I, heard suddenly a wild, disgusting cry: “What? What does that ‘also’ mean? What does that ‘also’ mean? I demand . . .”

Widely parted Negro lips. . . . Eyes bulging, I (the real