We, Yevgeny Zamyatin [read a book .TXT] 📗

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 I) grasped my other wild, hairy, heavily breathing self forcibly. I (the real I) said to him, to R-, “In the name of the Well-Doer, please forgive me. I am very sick; I don’t sleep; I do not know what is the matter with me.”

A swiftly passing smile appeared on the thick lips.

“Yes, yes, I understand, I understand. I am familiar with all this, theoretically, of course. Goodbye.”

At the door he turned around like a little black ball, came back to the table and put a book upon it. “This is my latest book. I came to bring it to you. Almost forgot. Goodbye.” (b like a splash.) The little ball rolled out.

I am alone. Or, to be more exact, I am tête-à-tête with that other self. I sit in the armchair and having crossed my legs, I watch curiously from some indefinite “there,” how I (myself) am shrivelling in my bed!

Why, oh, why is it, that for three years R-, O-, and I were so friendly together and now suddenly⁠—one word only about that other female, about I-330, and.⁠ ⁠… Is it possible that that insanity called love and jealousy does exist not only in the idiotic books of the ancients? What seems most strange is that I, I!⁠ ⁠… Equations, formulae, figures, and suddenly this! I can’t understand it, I can’t! Tomorrow I shall go to R- and tell him.⁠ ⁠… No, it isn’t true; I shall not go; neither tomorrow nor day after tomorrow, nor ever.⁠ ⁠… I can’t, I do not want to see him. This is the end. Our triangle is broken up.

I am alone. It is evening. There is a light fog. The sky is covered by a thin milky-golden tissue. If I only knew what is there⁠—higher. If I only knew who I am. Which I am I?

Record Twelve

The delimitation of the infinite⁠—Angel⁠—Meditations on poetry.

I continue to believe that I shall recover, that I may recover. I slept very well. No dreams or any other symptoms of disease. Dear O-90 will come tomorrow. Everything will again be simple, regular and limited like a circle. I am not afraid of this word “limited.” The work of the highest faculty of man, judgment, is always directed toward the constant limiting of the infinite, toward the breaking up of the infinite into comfortably digestible portions⁠—differentials. This is what gives divine beauty to my element, mathematics. And it is exactly this beauty that that other female lacks. But this last thought of mine is only an accidental mental association.

These thoughts swarmed in my mind while I was listening to the regular, rhythmic sounds of the underground railway. Silently I followed the rhythm of its wheels and recited to myself R-’s verses (from the book which he gave me yesterday), and I felt that behind me someone was leaning over my shoulder and looking at the open pages. I did not turn around but with the corner of my eye I noticed pink ears, spread like wings, the double-curved⁠ ⁠… like the letter.⁠ ⁠… It was he, but I did not want to disturb him. I feigned not to have noticed him. How he came in, I do not know. I did not see him when I got into the car.

This incident, insignificant in itself, had an especially good effect upon me; it invigorated me, I should say. It is pleasant to feel that somebody’s penetrating eye is watching you from behind your shoulder, lovingly guarding you from making the most minute mistake, from the most minute incorrect step. It may seem to you too sentimental but I see in all this the materialization of the dream of the ancients about a Guardian-Angel. How many things about which the ancients had only dreams, are materialized in our life!

At the moment when I became aware of the presence of the Guardian-Angel behind me I was enjoying a poem entitled “Happiness.” I think I am not mistaken when I say that it is a piece of rare beauty and depth of thought. Here are the first four lines:

“Two times two⁠—eternal lovers;
Inseparable in passion four⁠ ⁠…
Most flaming lovers in the world,
Eternally welded, two times two.”

And the rest is in the same vein: on the wisdom and the eternal happiness of the multiplication table. Every poet is inevitably a Columbus. America existed before Columbus for ages, but only Columbus found it. The multiplication table existed before R-13 for ages, but only R-13 could find in the virginal forest of figures a new Eldorado. Is it not true? Is there any happiness more wise and cloudless in this wonderful world? Steel may rust. The ancient god created the ancient man, i.e., the man capable of mistakes, ergo the ancient god himself made a mistake. The multiplication table is more wise and more absolute than the ancient god, for the multiplication table never (do you understand⁠—never) makes mistakes! There are no more fortunate and happy people than those who live according to the correct, eternal laws of the multiplication table. No hesitation! No errors! There is but one truth, and there is but one path to it; and that truth is: four, and that path is: two times two. Would it not seem preposterous for these happily multiplied twos suddenly to begin thinking of some foolish kind of freedom? i.e. (is it not clear?) of a mistake? It seems undeniable, axiomatic, that R-13 knows how to grasp the most fundamental,