Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/91

the Integral will soar higher and higher, like a flaming Tamerlane of happiness! I watched how the workers, true to the Taylor system, would bend down, then unbend and turn around swiftly and rhythmically like levers of an enormous engine. In their hands they held glittering glass pipes which emitted bluish streaks of flame; the glass walls were being cut into with flame; with flame were being welded the angles, the ribs, the bars. I watched the monstrous glass cranes easily rolling over the glass rails; like the workers themselves, they would obediently turn, bend down, and bring their loads inward into the bowels of the Integral. All seemed one: humanized machine and mechanized humans. It was the most magnificent, most stirring beauty, harmony, music!

Quick! Down! To them and with them! And I descended and mingled with them, fused with their mass, caught in the rhythm of steel and glass. Their movements were measured, tense and round. Their cheeks were colored with health, their mirrorlike foreheads unclouded by the insanity of thinking. I was floating upon a mirrorlike sea. I was resting. . . . Suddenly one of them turned his carefree face toward me.

“Well, better today?”

“What, better?”

“You were not here yesterday. And we thought something serious . . .” His forehead was shining—a childish and innocent smile.

My blood rushed to my face. No, I could not lie, facing those eyes. I remained silent; I was drowning. . . . Above, a shiny, round, white porcelain face appeared in the hatchway.

“Hey! D-503! Come up here! Something is wrong with a frame and brackets here, and . . .”

Not waiting until he had finished, I rushed to him, upstairs; I was shamefully saving myself by flight. I had not the power to raise my eyes. I was dazed by the sparkling glass steps, under my feet, and with every step I felt more