We. Евгений Замятин

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      Record Nine

      Liturgy

      Iambus

      The Cast-iron Hand

      A solemn, bright day. On such days one forgets one’s weaknesses, inexactitudes, illnesses, and everything is crystalline and imperturbable like our new glass….

      The Plaza of the Cube. Sixty-six imposing concentric circles—stands. Sixty-six rows of quiet, serene faces. Eyes reflecting the shining of the sky, or perhaps it is the shining of the United State. Red like blood are the flowers—the lips of the women. Like soft garlands the faces of the children in the first rows, nearest the place of action. Profound, austere, Gothic silence.

      To judge by the descriptions that reach us from the ancients, they felt somewhat like this during their “church services.” But they served their nonsensical, unknown god; we serve our rational god, whom we know most thoroughly. Their god gave them nothing but eternal, torturing seeking; our god gives us absolute truth—that is, he has rid us of any kind of doubt. Their god did not invent anything cleverer than sacrificing oneself, nobody knows what for; we bring to our god, die United State, a quiet, rational, carefully thought-out sacrifice.

      Yes, it was a solemn liturgy for the United State, a reminiscence of the great days, years, of the Two Hundred Years’ War—a magnificent celebration of the victory of all over one, of the sum over the individual!

      That one stood on the steps of the Cube which was filled with sunlight. A white, no not even white but already colorless, glass face, lips of glass. And only the eyes—thirsty, swallowing black holes leading into that dreadful world from which he was only a few minutes away. The golden badge with the number already had been taken off. His hands were tied with a red ribbon. (A symbol of ancient custom. The explanation of it is that in the old days, when this sort of thing was not done in the name of the United State, the convicted naturally considered that they had the right to resist, hence their hands were usually bound with chains.)

      On the top of the Cube, next to the Machine, the motionless, metallic figure of him whom we call the Well-Doer. One could not see his face from below. All one could see was that it was bounded by austere, magnificent, square lines. And his hands…. Did you ever notice how sometimes in a photograph the hands, if they were too near the camera, appear to be enormous? They then compel your attention, overshadow everything else. Those hands of his, heavy hands, quiet for the time being, were stony hands—it seemed the knees on which they rested must have ached in bearing their weight.

      Suddenly one of those hands rose slowly. A slow, cast-iron gesture; obeying the will of the lifted hand, a Number came out on the platform. It was one of the State poets, whose fortunate lot it was to crown our celebration with his verses.

      Divine, iambic brass verses thundered over the many stands. They dealt with the man who, his reason lost and lips like glass, stood on the steps and waited for the logical consequences of his own insane deeds.

      … A blaze…. Buildings were swaying in those iambic lines, and sprinkling upward their liquefied golden substance, they broke and fell. The green trees were scorched, their sap slowly ran out and they remained standing like black crosses, like skeletons. Then appeared Prometheus (that meant us):

      “…he harnessed fire

      With machines and steel

      And fettered chaos with Law …”

      The world was renovated; it became like steel—a sun of steel, trees of steel, men of steel. Suddenly an insane man “unchained the fire and set it free,” and again the world had perished… Unfortunately I have a bad memory for poetry, but one thing I am sure of: one could not choose more instructive or more beautiful parables.

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