Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [711]

I am like a machine set at excessive speed: the bearings are overheated; another minute, and molten metal will begin to drip, and everything will turn to naught Quick—cold water, logic. I pour it by the pailful, but logic hisses on the red-hot bearings and dissipates into the air in whiffs of white, elusive steam. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 711

Note

The metaphor of overheating machinery captures the protagonist’s physiological breakdown under emotional stress, turning abstract logic into a tangible, hissing substance.