We. Yevgeny Zamyatin

      (1,500 auditoriums, 10,000,000 numbers). And second of all . . . well, let me begin at the beginning.

      The auditorium. A giant, entirely translucent hemisphere, saturated with sunlight, made of expansive glass blocks. Circular rows of beautifully sphere-like, carefully trimmed heads. My heart fluttered, looking around. I think I was searching: would that pink crest – O’s sweet lips – glimmer atop the blue waves of the unifs? Here’s someone’s unusually white and sharp teeth, those look familiar . . . no, no sign of her. This evening, O is coming to my place at 21 so it was perfectly natural that I wanted to see her.

      The bell. We got up, sang the Anthem of the One State, and then the loudspeaker appeared on stage, sparkling with gold and the wit of the phonolector.

      ‘Esteemed numbers! Our archaeologists have recently unearthed a book from the twentieth century. In it, a humour writer tells the story of a savage and a barometer. A savage once noticed that whenever the barometer read “rain”, it would rain. So one day, when the savage wanted it to rain, he decided to dig out exactly enough mercury to make it read “rain”’ – on the screen, a savage in feathers picking mercury out of a barometer: laughter – ‘you laugh, but don’t you think that the Europeans of that era deserve even more of your ridicule? Just like that savage, the Europeans wanted “rain” – rain with a capital R, algebraic rain. But all they could do was stand there in front of their barometers like a bunch of wet chickens. At least the savage had courage and verve and – although, admittedly, savage – logic: he saw the connection between cause and effect. By removing the mercury, he took the first step down this great path, along which . . .’

      And here (again: I am writing without hiding anything) – for a while, it was like I’d become waterproof to the invigorating currents spouting from the loudspeaker. I suddenly thought that I shouldn’t have come here (why ‘shouldn’t have’ and how could I have failed to come if I’d been assigned to?). I felt like everything was empty, just a shell. And I was only able to turn my attention back on, with difficulty, when the phonolector turned to the main topic: our music, mathematical composition (the mathematician – the cause; music – the effect), and a description of the recently invented musicometer. ‘By simply turning the handle, any one of you can produce up to three sonatas an hour. Now imagine how difficult this was for our ancestors. They could only create after working themselves up into fits of so-called “inspiration”, an obscure form of epilepsy. And now we present a hilarious illustration of the results they achieved through their efforts: the music of Scriabin, from the twentieth century. This black box’ – the curtain opened, revealing their ancient instrument – ‘this box was called a “grand”, or even a “royale”, which is yet more proof of how all of their music . . .’

      And I don’t remember the rest after that, most likely because . . . well, I’ll just say it: because then I saw her, I-330, approaching the box. Perhaps I was simply startled by her unexpected appearance on stage.

      She wore a fantastical costume from the ancient era: a skintight black dress, which sharply contrasted against the white of her shoulders and chest, which were bare, and the warm shadow between them, rising and falling with her every breath . . . those blinding, almost sinister teeth . . .

      Her smile, like a bite, cast down at us in the audience. She sat and started to play. The music was as wild, fevered and colourful as everything else about that old life – not a shadow of the mechanical rational. So of course the people around me were right: they were all laughing. But a few . . . and why me, as well – me?

      Yes, epilepsy – madness – torment . . . slow, sweet pain – a bite – harder, make it hurt more. And then, slowly, the sun. Not our sun, no blue crystal light evenly shining through glass blocks – no: the wild, rushing, scorching sun – tear everything off – tear it all up into little pieces.

      The man sitting next to me glanced sideways to his left – at me – and snickered. For some reason, I very distinctly remember: I saw a microscopic spit bubble pop out onto his lips and burst. That little bubble brought me back to reality. I was myself again.

      And, like everyone else, all I could hear was a fumbling, furious clatter. I started laughing. Everything was easy and simple again. The talented phonolector had given too vivid of an example of that savage era, that’s all.

      What a pleasure it was to hear today’s music after that racket. (It was demonstrated at the end for contrast.) Crystalline, chromatic tones flowing together and coming apart in infinite rows – summation chords for Taylor’s and Maclaurin’s formulas; whole-toned, quadrangular steps in Pythagorean trousers; the melancholy strains of the dampening oscillating movement; cheerful measures studded with pauses like Fraunhofer lines – the spectral analyses of the planets . . . What grandeur! What unshakable regularity! Next to the frantically free-spirited, one-dimensional music of the Ancients, unregulated by anything but wild fantasies—

      As always, we filed out of the wide doors of the auditorium in even rows of four. A familiar, double-bent figure flashed past me; I bowed with respect.

      Darling O would be with me in an hour. I was feeling good and purposefully excited. At home, I hurried down to the office, handed in my pink ticket, and picked up my permit to use the blinds. We are only allowed to use them on Sex Days. Otherwise, we are always on view, eternally washed by the light within our translucent walls, which seem to be woven from sparkling air. We have nothing to hide from each other. Plus, it makes the difficult and noble task of the Guardians a lot easier. Otherwise – who knows what could happen. It’s quite possible that the bizarre, opaque dwellings of the Ancients are exactly what led to their pathetic, single-celled mindset. ‘My [sic!] home is my castle’ – imagine!

      At 21, I lowered the blinds and, at that exact same moment, O came in, slightly out of breath. She stretched out her little pink mouth to me with her little pink ticket. I tore the ticket but couldn’t tear myself from that mouth until the very last moment, 22:15.

      Afterwards, I showed her my notes and said that I thought it very good what I’d written about the beauty of the square, the cube and the line. She listened, pinkly and charmingly until suddenly, a tear slipped from her blue eye, and then another, a third – falling right on the open page (page 30). The ink smeared. Now I will have to rewrite it.

      ‘Darling D, if only you – if only . . .’

      Well, what ‘if only’? ‘If only’ what? And again, her refrain: a baby. Or maybe it was something new, something about . . . about that other woman? Although then it was like . . . no, that would be too stupid.