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We is a dystopian novel by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin that was written in 1920–1921. It was first published as an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York.
Inside the book
- Free nowno account · 2 chapters
- —Foreword9 min
- 2Record One3 min
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- 3Record Two11 min
- 4Record Three8 min
- 5Record Four8 min
- 6Record Five5 min
- 7Record Six13 min
- 8Record Seven11 min
- 9Record Eight10 min
- 10Record Nine7 min
- 11Record Ten16 min
- 12Record Eleven11 min
- 13Record Twelve7 min
- 14Record Thirteen11 min
- 15Record Fourteen6 min
- 16Record Fifteen9 min
- 17Record Sixteen12 min
- 18Record Seventeen13 min
- 19Record Eighteen12 min
- 20Record Nineteen12 min
- 21Record Twenty6 min
- 22Record Twenty-One11 min
- 23Record Twenty-Two7 min
- 24Record Twenty-Three9 min
- 25Record Twenty-Four7 min
- 26Record Twenty-Five13 min
- 27Record Twenty-Six7 min
- 28Record Twenty-Seven12 min
- 29Record Twenty-Eight15 min
- 30Record Twenty-Nine5 min
- 31Record Thirty7 min
- 32Record Thirty-One14 min
- 33Record Thirty-Two12 min
- 34Record Thirty-Three2 min
- 35Record Thirty-Four16 min
- 36Record Thirty-Five12 min
- 37Record Thirty-Six8 min
- 38Record Thirty-Seven8 min
- 39Record Thirty-Eight5 min
- 40Record Thirty-Nine10 min
- 41Record Forty3 min
The opening
Record One
This is merely a copy, word by word, of what was published this morning in the State newspaper:
“In another hundred and twenty days the building of the Integral will be completed. The great historic hour is near, when the first Integral will rise into the limitless space of the universe. A thousand years ago your heroic ancestors subjected the whole earth to the power of the United State. A still more glorious task is before you—the integration of the indefinite equation of the Cosmos by the use of the glass, electric, fire-breathing Integral. Your mission is to subjugate to the grateful yoke of reason the unknown beings who live on other planets, and who are perhaps still in the primitive state of freedom. If they will not understand that we are bringing them a mathematically faultless happiness, our duty will be to force them to be happy. But before we take up arms, we shall try the power of words.
“In the name of The Well-Doer, the following is announced herewith to all Numbers of the United State:
“Whoever feels capable must consider it his duty to write treatises, poems, manifestos, odes and other compositions on the greatness and the beauty of the United State.
“This will be the first load which the Integral will carry.
“Long live the United State! Long live the Numbers!! Long live the Well-Doer!!!”
I feel my cheeks are burning as I write this. To integrate the colossal, universal equation! To unbend the wild curve, to straighten it out to a tangent—to a straight line! For the United State is a straight line, a great, divine, precise, wise line, the wisest of lines!
I, D-503, the builder of the Integral, I am only one of the many mathematicians of the United State. My pen, which is accustomed to figures, is unable to express the march and rhythm of consonance; therefore I shall try to record only the things I see, the things I think, or to be more exact, the things we think. Yes, we; that is exactly what I mean, and “We” shall, therefore, be the title of my records. But this will only be a derivative of our life—of our mathematical, perfect life in the United State. If this be so, will not this derivative be a poem in itself, despite my limitations? It will. I believe, I know it.
I feel my cheeks are burning as I write this. I feel something similar to what a woman probably feels when for the first time she senses within herself the pulse of a tiny, blind, human being. It is I, and at the same time it is not I. And for many long months it will be necessary to feed it with my life, with my blood, and then with a pain at my heart, to tear it from myself and lay it at the feet of the United State.
Yet I am ready, as everyone, or nearly every one of us, is. I am ready.
About the author
Yevgeny Zamyatin
1884 Lebedyan – 1937 16th arrondissement of Paris · Russian author
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin, sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamiatin, was a Russian author of science fiction, philosophy, literary criticism, and political satire. The son of a Russian Orthodox priest, Zamyatin abandoned Christianity at an early age and became a Bolshevik.
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