WE (A Dystopia). Yevgeny Zamyatin
of Number so and so, or Numbers so and so. You get for that purpose a checkbook (pink). That is all.
It is clear that under such circumstances there is no reason for envy or jealousy. The denominator of the fraction of happiness is reduced to zero and the whole fraction is thus converted into a magnificent infiniteness. The thing which was for the ancients a source of innumerable stupid tragedies has been converted in our time into a harmonious, agreeable, and useful function of the organism, a function like sleep, physical labor, the taking of food, digestion, etc., etc. Hence you see how the great power of logic purifies everything it happens to touch. Oh, if only you unknown readers can conceive this divine power! If you will only learn to follow it to the end!
It is very strange. While I was writing today of the loftiest summit of human history, all the while I breathed the purest mountain air of thought, but within me it was and remains cloudy, cobwebby, and there is a kind of cross-like, four-pawed X. Or perhaps it is my paws and I feel like that only because they are always before my eyes, my hairy paws. I don’t like to talk about them. I dislike them. They are a trace of a primitive epoch. Is it possible that there is in me ... ?
I wanted to strike out all this because it trespasses on the limits of my synopsis. But then I decided: no,, I shall not! Let this diary give the curve of the most imperceptible vibrations of my brain, like a precise seismograph, for at times such vibrations serve as forewarnings ... Certainly this is absurd! This certainly should be stricken out; we have conquered all the elements; catastrophes are not possible any more.
Now everything is clear to me. The peculiar feeling inside is a result of that very same square situation of which I spoke in the beginning. There is no X in me. There can be none. I am simply afraid lest some X will be left in you, my unknown readers. I believe you will understand that it is harder for me to write than it ever was for any author throughout human history. Some of them wrote for contemporaries, some for future generations, but none of them ever wrote for their ancestors, or for beings like their primitive, distant ancestors.
Record Six
An Accident
The Cursed “It’s Clear”
Twenty-four Hours
I must repeat, I have made it my duty to write concealing nothing. Therefore I must point out now that, sad as it may be, the process of the hardening and crystallization of life has evidently not been completed even here in our State. A few steps more and we will be within reach of our ideal. The ideal (its clear) is to be found where nothing happens, but here. ... I will give you an example: in the State paper I read that in two days the holiday of Justice will be celebrated on the Plaza of the Cube. This means that again some Number has impeded the smooth running of the great State machine. Again something that was not foreseen, or forecalculated, happened.
Besides, something happened to me. True, it occurred during the personal hour, that is during the time specifically assigned to unforeseen circumstances, yet . . .
At about sixteen (to be exact, ten minutes to sixteen), I was at home. Suddenly the telephone:
“D-503?”—a womans voice.
“Yes.”
“Are you free?’
“Yes”
“It is I, I-330. I shall run over to you immediately. We shall go together to the Ancient House. Agreed?”
I-330! . . . This I- irritates me, repels me. She almost frightens me; but just because of that I answered, “Yes.” In five minutes we were in an aero. Blue sky of May. The bright sun in its own golden aero buzzed behind us without catching up and without lagging behind. Ahead of us a white cataract of a cloud. Yes, a white cataract of a cloud, nonsensically fluffy like the cheeks of an ancient cupid. That cloud was disturbing. The front window was open; it was windy; lips were dry. Against one’s will one passed the tongue constantly over them and thought about lips.
Already we saw in the distance the hazy green spots on the other side of the Wall. Then a slight involuntary sinking of the heart, down-down—down, as if from a steep mountain, and we were at the Ancient House.
That strange, delicate, blind establishment is covered all around with a glass shell, otherwise it would undoubtedly have fallen to pieces long ago. At the glass door we found an old woman all wrinkles, especially her mouth, which was all made up of folds and pleats. Her lips had disappeared, having folded inward; her mouth seemed grown together. It seemed incredible that she should be able to talk, and yet she did.
“Well, dear, come again to see my little house?”
Her wrinkles shone, that is, her wrinkles diverged like rays, which created the impression of shining.
“Yes, Grandmother,” answered I-330.
The wrinkles continued to shine.
“And the sun, eh, do you see it, you rogue, you! I know, I know. It’s all right. Go all by yourselves—I shall remain here in the sunshine.”
Hmm. . . . Apparently my companion was a frequent guest here. Something disturbed me; probably that unpleasant optical impression, the cloud on the smooth blue surface of the sky.
While we were ascending the wide, dark stairs, I-330 said, “I love her, that old woman.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps for her mouth—or perhaps for nothing, just so.”
I shrugged my shoulders. She continued walking upstairs with a faint smile, or perhaps without a smile at all.
I felt very guilty. It is clear that there must not be “love, just so,” but “love because of.” For all elements of nature should be ...
“It’s clear ...” I began, but I stopped at that word and cast a furtive look at I-330. Did she notice it or not? She looked somewhere, down; her eyes were closed like curtains.
It struck me suddenly: evening about twenty-two; you walk on the avenue and among the brightly lighted, transparent, cubic cells are dark spaces, lowered curtains, and there behind the curtains . . . What has she behind her curtains? Why did she phone me today? Why did she bring me here? and all this....
She opened a heavy, squeaking, opaque door and we found ourselves in a somber disorderly space (they called it an “apartment”). The same strange “royal” musical instrument and a wild, unorganized, crazy loudness of colors and forms like their ancient music. A white plane above, dark blue walls, red, green, orange bindings of ancient books, yellow bronze candelabra, a statue of Buddha, furniture with lines distorted by epilepsy, impossible to reduce to any clear equation.
I could hardly bear that chaos. But my companion apparently possessed a stronger constitution.
“This is my most beloved—” she suddenly caught herself (again a smile, bite, and white sharp teeth)—“to be more exact, the most nonsensical of all ‘apartments/ ” “Or, to be most exact, of all the States. Thousands of microscopic States, fighting eternal wars, pitiless like—” “Oh, yes, it’s clear,” said I-330 with apparent sincerity.
We passed through a room where we found a few small children’s beds (children in those days were also private property). Then more rooms, glimmering mirrors, somber closets, unbearably loud-colored divans, an enormous “fireplace,” a large mahogany bed. Our contemporary beautiful, transparent, eternal glass was represented here only by pitiful, delicate, tiny squares of windows.
“And to think; here there was love ‘just so’; they burned and tortured themselves.” (Again the curtain of the eyes was lowered.) “What a stupid, uneconomical spending of human energy. Am I not right?”
She sJ)oke as though reading my thoughts, but in her smile there remained always that irritating X. There behind