We

by Evgenii Ivanovich Zamiatin

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 some one 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, the most....

At that moment again I felt (first near the back of my head, then on my left ear) the warm, tender breath of the Guardian-Angel. He apparently noticed that the book on my lap had long been closed and that my thoughts were somewhere very far.... Well, I am ready this minute to spread

before him the pages of my brain. This gives one such a feeling of tranquility and joy. I remember I even turned around and gazed long and questioningly into his eyes; but either he did not understand, or he did not want to understand me. He did not ask me anything.... The only thing left for me is to relate everything to you, my unknown readers. You are to me now as dear and as near and as far out of reach as he was at that moment.

This was my way of thinking: from the part to the whole,—R-13 is the part; the whole is our Institution of State Poets and Authors. I thought: how was it that the ancients did not notice the utter absurdity of their prose and poetry? The gigantic, magnificent power of the artistic word was spent by them in vain. It is really droll; anybody wrote whatever happened to come into his head! It was as foolish as the fact that in the days of the ancients the ocean blindly splashed at the shore for twenty-four hours without interruption or use. The millions of kilogram-meters of energy which were hidden in the waves were used only for the stimulation of sweethearts! We obtained electricity from the amorous whisper of the waves! We made a domestic animal out of that sparkling, foaming, rabid one! And in the same manner we domesticated and harnessed the wild element of poetry. Now poetry is no longer the unpardonable whistling of nightingales but a State Service! Poetry is a commodity.