We / Мы. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Евгений Замятин

      “What is it?”

      “What, what! Oh… Oh, I’m simply tired of it. Everyone around talks of nothing but the sentence. I don’t want to hear about it any more. I just don’t want to!”

      He frowned and rubbed the back of his head-that little box of his with its strange baggage that I did not understand. A pause. And then he found something in the box, pulled it out, opened it. His eyes glossed over with laughter as he jumped up.

      “But for your Integral, I am composing… That will be… Oh, yes, that will be something!”

      It was again the old R: thick, sputtering lips, spraying saliva, and a fountain of words. “You see” (“s” – a spray) “…that ancient legend about paradise… Why, it’s about us, about today. Yes! Just think. Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative. Those idiots chose freedom, and what came of it? Of course, for ages afterward they longed for the chains. The chains – you understand? That’s what world sorrow was about For ages! And only we have found the way of restoring happiness… No, wait listen further! The ancient God and we – side by side, at the same table. Yes! We have helped God ultimately to conquer the devil – for it was he who had tempted men to break the ban and get a taste of ruinous freedom, he, the evil serpent. And we, we’ve brought down our boot over his little head, and – cr-runch! Now everything is fine – we have paradise again. Again we are as innocent and simple-hearted as Adam and Eve. No more of that confusion about good and evil. Everything is simple – heavenly, childishly simple. The Benefactor, the Machine, the Cube, the Gas Bell, the Guardians – all this is good, all this is sublime, magnificent, noble, elevated, crystally pure. Because it protects our unfreedom – that is, our happiness. The ancients would begin to talk and think and break their heads – ethical, unethical… Well, then. In short, what about such a paradisiac poem, eh? And, of course, in the most serious tone… You understand? Quite something, eh?”