{"product_id":"we-isbn-9780140185850","title":"We","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe exhilarating dystopian novel that inspired George Orwell's \u003ci\u003e1984 \u003c\/i\u003eand foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, featuring a foreword by the National Book Award-winning \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e journalist Masha Gessen\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYevgeny Zamyatin's \u003ci\u003eWe\u003c\/i\u003e is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand. In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, \u003ci\u003eWe \u003c\/i\u003eis the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George Orwell's\u003ci\u003e 1984\u003c\/i\u003e and Aldous Huxley's\u003ci\u003e Brave New World\u003c\/i\u003e. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction.   Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.We       Introduction: Zamyatin and the Rooster\u003cbr\u003eNotes to Introduction\u003cbr\u003eSuggestions for Further Reading\u003cbr\u003eWE\u003cb\u003eRecord 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnnouncement\u003cbr\u003eThe Wisest of Lines\u003cbr\u003eAn Epic Poem\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 2\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBallet\u003cbr\u003eHarmony Squared\u003cbr\u003eX\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 3\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJacket\u003cbr\u003eWall\u003cbr\u003eThe Table\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 4\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSavage with Barometer\u003cbr\u003eEpilepsy\u003cbr\u003eIf\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 5\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSquare\u003cbr\u003eRulers of the World\u003cbr\u003ePleasant and Useful Function\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 6\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccident\u003cbr\u003eDamned \"Clear\"\u003cbr\u003e24 Hours\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 7\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Eyelash\u003cbr\u003eTaylor\u003cbr\u003eHenbane and Lily of the Valley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 8\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Irrational Root\u003cbr\u003eR-13\u003cbr\u003eTriangle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 9\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLiturgy\u003cbr\u003eIambs and Trochees\u003cbr\u003eCast-Iron Hand\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 10\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLetter\u003cbr\u003eMembrane\u003cbr\u003eHairy Me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 11\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo, I Can't...\u003cbr\u003eSkip the Contents\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 12\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLimitation of Infinity\u003cbr\u003eAngel\u003cbr\u003eReflections on Poetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 13\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFog\u003cbr\u003eFamiliar \"You\"\u003cbr\u003eAn Absolutely Inane Occurrence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 14\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mine\"\u003cbr\u003eForbidden\u003cbr\u003eCold Floor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 15\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBell\u003cbr\u003eMirror-like Sea\u003cbr\u003eMy Fate to Burn Forever\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 16\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYellow\u003cbr\u003eTwo-Dimensional Shadow\u003cbr\u003eIncurable Soul\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 17\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough Glass\u003cbr\u003eI Died\u003cbr\u003eHallways\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 18\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLogical Labyrinth\u003cbr\u003eWounds and Plaster\u003cbr\u003eNever Again\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 19\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThird-Order Infinitesimal\u003cbr\u003eA Sullen Glare\u003cbr\u003eOver the Parapet\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 20\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDischarge\u003cbr\u003eIdea Material\u003cbr\u003eZero Cliff\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 21\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn Author's Duty\u003cbr\u003eSwollen Ice\u003cbr\u003eThe Most Difficult Love\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 22\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrozen Waves\u003cbr\u003eEverything Tends to Perfection\u003cbr\u003eI Am a Microbe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 23\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFlowers\u003cbr\u003eDissolution of a Crystal\u003cbr\u003eIf Only\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 24\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLimit of Function\u003cbr\u003eEaster\u003cbr\u003eCross It All Out\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 25\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDescent from Heaven\u003cbr\u003eHistory's Greatest Catastrophe\u003cbr\u003eEnd of the Known\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 26\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe World Exists\u003cbr\u003eA Rash\u003cbr\u003e41 Centigrade\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 27\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo Contents - Can't\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 28\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth Women\u003cbr\u003eEntropy and Energy\u003cbr\u003eOpaque Part of the Body\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 29\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThreads on the Face\u003cbr\u003eShoots\u003cbr\u003eUnnatural Compression\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 30\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Final Number\u003cbr\u003eGalileo's Mistake\u003cbr\u003eWouldn't It Be Better?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 31\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Great Operation\u003cbr\u003eI Have Forgiven Everything\u003cbr\u003eA Train Wreck\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 32\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI Do Not Believe\u003cbr\u003eTractors\u003cbr\u003eThe Human Chip\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 33\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(No Time for Contents, Last Note)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 34\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThose on Leave\u003cbr\u003eA Sunny Night\u003cbr\u003eRadio-Valkyrie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 35\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a Hoop\u003cbr\u003eCarrot\u003cbr\u003eMurder\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 36\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlank Pages\u003cbr\u003eThe Christian God\u003cbr\u003eAbout My Mother\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 37\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInfusorian\u003cbr\u003eDoomsday\u003cbr\u003eHer Room\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 38\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(I Don't Know What Goes Here, Maybe Just: A Cigarette Butt)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 39\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe End\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRecord 40\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFacts\u003cbr\u003eThe Bell\u003cbr\u003eI Am Certain\u003cbr\u003eTranslator's Notes“Zamyatin . . . did more than predict some of the specific characteristics of totalitarianism―he predicted its defining condition: the destruction of the individual. . . . [He] found the word for it: \u003ci\u003eWe\u003c\/i\u003e.” ―\u003cb\u003eMasha Gessen, from the Foreword\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The best single work of science fiction yet written.” —\u003cb\u003eUrsula K. Le Guin\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Zamyatin’s] intuitive grasp of the irrational side of totalitarianism—human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself—makes [\u003ci\u003eWe\u003c\/i\u003e] superior to Huxley’s [\u003ci\u003eBrave New World\u003c\/i\u003e].” —\u003cb\u003eGeorge Orwell\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “At this dystopian moment in world politics, everyone’s talking about \u003ci\u003e1984\u003c\/i\u003e, but take a look at the novel that inspired it (or, at least, which George Orwell reviewed soon before he wrote \u003ci\u003e1984\u003c\/i\u003e)—Yevgeny Zamyatin’s \u003ci\u003eWe.\u003c\/i\u003e . . . The dystopia Zamyatin painted has, alas, many echoes with today’s surveillance society—just think of China’s budding ‘social credit’ program, which monitors citizens’ movements. Big Brother was a piker, compared to Xi Jinping. Zamyatin saw it coming.” —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLit Hub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eYevgeny Zamyatin\u003c\/b\u003e (1884-1937) was a naval architect by profession and a writer by nature. His favorite idea was the absolute freedom of the human personality to create, to imagine, to love, to make mistakes, and to change the world. This made him a highly inconvenient citizen of two despotisms, the tsarist and the Communist, both of which exiled him—the first for a year, the latter forever. He wrote short stories, plays, and essays, but his masterpiece is \u003ci\u003eWe\u003c\/i\u003e, written in 1920–21 and soon thereafter translated into most of the languages of the world, yet it first appeared in Russia only in 1988. It is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-utopia; a great prose poem on the fate that might befall all of us if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom. George Orwell, the author of \u003ci\u003e1984\u003c\/i\u003e, acknowledged his debt to Zamyatin. The other great English dystopia of our time, Aldous Huxley’s \u003ci\u003eBrave New World\u003c\/i\u003e, was evidently written out of the same impulse, though without direct knowledge of Zamyatin’s \u003ci\u003eWe\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eClarence Brown\u003c\/b\u003e (translator\/introducer; 1929-2015) was the editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Portable Twentieth-Century Russian Reader\u003c\/i\u003e, which contains his translation of Zamyatin's short story \"The Cave.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMasha Gessen\u003c\/b\u003e (foreword) is the author of more than ten books, including the National Book Award-winning \u003ci\u003eThe Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin\u003c\/i\u003e. A staff writer at \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e and the recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships, Gessen teaches at Bard College and lives in New York City.081297462X|excerpt\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Zamyatin: WE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    record one\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    keywords:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A Declaration. The Wisest of Lines. A Poem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      I am merely copying, word for word, what was printed in the State Gazette  today:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In 120 days, the construction of the Integral will be complete. The great,  historic hour when the Integral will soar through the Earth’s atmosphere  is nigh. Some thousand years ago, your heroic ancestors subjugated the  Earth to the power of the One State. Today, you are confronting an even  greater conquest: the integration of the infinite equation of the universe  with the crystalline, electrified, and fire-breathing Integral. You are  confronting unknown creatures on alien planets, who may still be living in  the savage state of freedom, and subjugating them to the beneficial yoke  of reason. If they won’t understand that we bring them mathematically  infallible happiness, it will be our duty to force them to be happy. But  before resorting to arms, we will employ words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In the name of the Benefactor, let it be known to all ciphers of the One  State:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All those who are able are required to create treatises, poems,  manifestos, odes, or any other composition addressing the beauty and  majesty of the One State.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    These works will compose the first cargo of the Integral.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All hail the One State, all hail ciphers, all hail the Benefactor!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As I write this, I feel something: my cheeks are burning. Integrating the  grand equation of the universe: yes. Taming a wild zigzag along a tangent,  toward the asymptote, into a straight line: yes. You see, the line of the  One State—it is a straight line. A great, divine, precise, wise, straight  line—the wisest of lines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I am D-503. I am the Builder of the Integral. I am only one of the  mathematicians of the One State. My pen, more accustomed to mathematical  figures, is not up to the task of creating the music of unison and rhyme.  But I might as well attempt to record what I see, what I think—or, more  exactly, what we think. (Yes, that’s right: we. And let that also be the  title of these records: We.) So these records will be manufactured from  the stuff of our life, from the mathematically perfect life of the One  State, and, as such, might they become, inadvertently, regardless of my  intentions, a poem? Yes—I believe so and I know so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As I write this: I feel my cheeks burn. I suppose this resembles what a  woman experiences when she first hears a new pulse within her—the pulse of  a tiny, unseeing, mini-being. These records are me; and simultaneously not  me. And they will feed for many months on my sap, my blood, and then, in  anguish, they will be ripped from my self and placed at the foot of the  One State.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But I am ready and willing, just as every one—or almost every one of us. I  am ready.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      record two\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    keywords:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ballet. Quadratic Harmony. X.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Spring. From beyond the Green Wall, from the wild, invisible plains, the  wind brings the yellow honey-dust from a flower of some kind. This sweet  dust parches the lips—you skim your tongue across them every minute—and  you presume that there are sweet lips on every woman you encounter (and  man, of course). This somewhat interferes with logical reasoning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But then, the sky! Blue, untainted by a single cloud (the Ancients had  such barbarous tastes given that their poets could have been inspired by  such stupid, sloppy, silly-lingering clumps of vapor). I love—and I’m  certain that I’m not mistaken if I say we love—skies like this, sterile  and flawless!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On days like these, the whole world is blown from the same shatterproof,  everlasting glass as the glass of the Green Wall and of all our  structures. On days like these, you can see to the very blue depths of  things, to their unknown surfaces, those marvelous expressions of  mathematical equality—which exist in even the most usual and everyday  objects.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For instance, this morning I was at the hangar, where the Integral is  being built, and suddenly: I noticed the machines. Eyes shut, oblivious,  the spheres of the regulators were spinning; the cranks were twinkling,  dipping to the right and to the left; the shoulders of the balance wheel  were rocking proudly; and the cutting head of the perforating machine  curtsied, keeping time with some inaudible music. Instantly I saw the  greater beauty of this grand mechanized ballet, suffused with nimble  pale-blue sunbeams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And then I thought to myself: why? Is this beautiful? Why is this dance  beautiful? The answer: because it is non-free movement, because the whole  profound point of this dance lies precisely in its absolute, aesthetic  subordination, its perfect non-freedom. If indeed our ancestors were prone  to dancing at the most inspired moments of their lives (religious  mysteries, military parades), then all this can only mean one thing: the  instinct for non-freedom, from the earliest of times, is inherently  characteristic of humankind, and we, in our very contemporary life, are  simply more conscious . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    To be continued: the intercom is clicking. I lift my eyes: it reads  “O-90,” of course. And, in half a minute, she herself will be here to  collect me: we are scheduled for a walk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Sweet O! It has always seemed to me that she looks like her name: she is  about ten centimeters below the Maternal Norm, which makes her lines all  rounded, and a pink O—her mouth—is open to receive my every word. Also:  there are round, chubby creases around her wrists—such as you see on the  wrists of children.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When she entered, I was still buzzing inside out with the fly-wheel of  logic and, through inertia, I started to utter some words about this  formula I had only just resolved (which justified all of us, the machines  and the dance): “Stunning, isn’t it?” I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes, the spring, it is stunning . . .” O-90 smiled pinkly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Wouldn’t you know it: spring . . . I say “stunning” and she thinks of  spring. Women . . . I fell silent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Downstairs. The avenue is crowded: we normally use the Personal Hour after  lunch for extra walking when the weather is like this. As usual, the Music  Factory was singing the March of the One State with all its pipes. All  ciphers walked in measured rows, by fours, rapturously keeping step.  Hundreds and thousands of ciphers, in pale bluish unifs,* with gold badges  on their chests, indicating the state-given digits of each male and  female. And I—we, our foursome—was one of the countless waves of this  mighty torrent. On my left was O-90 (a thousand years ago, our hairy  forebears most probably would have written that funny word “my” when  referring to her just now); on my right were two rather unfamiliar  ciphers, a female and a male.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The blessed-blue sky, the tiny baby suns on each badge, faces unclouded by  the folly of thought . . . All these were rays, you see—all made of some  sort of unified, radiant, smiling matter. And a brass beat: Tra-ta-ta-tam,  Tra-ta-ta-tam—like sun-sparkling brass stairs—and with each step up, you  climb higher and higher into the head-spinning blueness . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And here, like this morning in the hangar, I saw it all as though for the  very first time: the immutably straight lanes, the ray-  spraying glass of the streets, the divine parallelepipeds of the  transparent buildings, and the quadratic harmony of the gray-blue ranks.  And: it was as if I—not whole generations past—had personally, myself,  conquered the old God and the old life. As if I personally had created all  this. And I was like a tower, not daring to move even an elbow, for fear  of chipping fragments off of walls, cupolas, machines . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And then, in an instant: a hop across centuries from 1 to 2. I was  reminded—obviously, it was association by contrast—I was suddenly reminded  of a painting in the museum depicting their olden day, twentieth-century  avenue in deafening multicolor: a jumbled crush of people, wheels,  animals, posters, trees, paint, birds . . . And do you know, they say that  it was actually like that—that it’s actually possible. I found that so  improbable, so ludicrous, that I couldn’t contain myself and laughed out  loud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    And then there was an echo—a laugh—coming from the right. I spun around:  the white—unusually white—and sharp teeth of an unfamiliar female face  were before my eyes, before me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    * This word is probably derived from the ancient word Uniforme.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Forgive me,” she said, “but you were observing your surround-ings with  such an inspired look—like some mythical God on the seventh day of  creation. It looked as though you actually believed that you, yourself,  had created everything—even me! I’m very flattered . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All this was said without smiling, and I’d even go as far as to say that  there was a certain reverence (maybe she was aware that I am the Builder  of the Integral). And I don’t know—perhaps it was somewhere in her eyes or  eyebrows—there was a kind of strange and irritating X to her, and I  couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t give it any numerical expression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    For some reason, I became embarrassed and, fumbling, began to justify my  laughter to her with logic. It was perfectly clear, I was saying, that the  contrast, the impassable chasm, that lies between today and yesterday . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “But why on earth impassable?” What white teeth! “Across the chasm—throw  up a bridge! Just imagine it for yourself: the drums, the battalions, the  ranks—these were all things that existed back then too. And consequently .  . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, yes, it’s clear!” I cried (it was an astonishing intersection of  thoughts: she was using almost exactly my words—the ones I had been  writing just before this Walk). “You see, even in our thoughts. No one is  ever ‘one,’ but always ‘one of.’ We are so identical . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Her words: “Are you sure?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I saw those jerked-up eyebrows forming sharp angles toward her  temples—like the sharp horns of an X—and again, somehow, got confused. I  glanced right, then left and . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She was on my right: thin, sharp, stubbornly supple, like a whip (I can  now see her digits are I-330). On my left was O-90, totally different,  made of circumferences, with that childlike little crease on her arm; and  at the far right of our foursome was an unfamiliar male cipher, sort of  twice-bent, a bit like the letter “S.” We were all different . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    This I-330 woman, on my right, had apparently intercepted my confused  glance and with an exhale: “Yes . . . Alas!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In essence, her “alas” was absolutely fitting. But again, there was  something about her face, or her voice . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I—with uncharacteristic abruptness—said: “Nothing alas about it. Science  progresses, and it’s clear that given another fifty, a hundred years . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Even everyone’s noses will be . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Yes, noses,” I was now almost screaming. “If, after all, there is any  good reason for enviousness . . . like the fact that I might have a nose  like a button and some other cipher might have . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Well, actually, your nose, if you don’t mind me saying, is quite  ‘classical,’ as they would say in the olden days. And look, your hands . .  . show, come on, show me your hands!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I cannot stand it when people look at my hands, all hairy and shaggy—such  stupid atavistic appendages. I extended my arms and with as steady a voice  as I could, I said: “Monkey hands.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She looked at my hands and then at my face: “Yes, they strike a very  curious chord.” She sized me up with eyes like a set of scales, the horns  at the corners of her eyebrows glinting again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “He is registered to me today,” O-90 rosily-joyfully opened her mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It would have been better to have stayed quiet—this was absolutely  irrelevant. Altogether, this sweet O person . . . how can I express this .  . . She has an incorrectly calculated speed of tongue. The microspeed of  the tongue ought to be always slightly less than the microspeed of the  thoughts and certainly not ever the reverse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the end of the avenue, the bell at the top of the Accumulator Tower  resoundingly struck 17:00. The Personal Hour was over.   I-330 was stepping away with that S-like male cipher. He commanded a  certain respect and, now I see, he had a possibly familiar face. I must  have met him somewhere—but right now I can’t think where.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As I-330 departed, she smiled with that same X-ishness. “Come by  Auditorium 112 the day after tomorrow.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I shrugged my shoulders: “If I am given instructions to go to the  particular auditorium you mention, then . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    With inexplicable conviction, she said: “You will.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The effect of that woman on me was as unpleasant as a displaced irrational  number that has accidentally crept into an equation. And I was glad that,  even if only for a short while, I was alone again with sweet O.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Arm in arm, we walked across four avenue blocks. On the corner, she would  go to the right and I to the left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “I would so like to come to you today and lower the blinds. Particularly  today, now . . .” O shyly lifted her blue-crystal eyes to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    You funny thing. Well, what could I say to her? She came over only  yesterday and knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after  tomorrow. This was simply that same “pre-ignition of thought” as sometimes  happens (sometimes harmfully) when a spark is issued prematurely in an  engine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Before parting, I twice . . . no, I’ll be exact: I kissed her marvelous,  blue, untainted-by-a-single-cloud eyes three times.","brand":"Penguin Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302069162213,"sku":"NP9780140185850","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780140185850.jpg?v=1767743688","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/we-isbn-9780140185850","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}