Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [376]

And what joy to submit to this “must.” A piece of iron must feel such joy as it submits to the precise, inevitable law that draws it to a magnet. Or a stone, thrown up, hesitating a moment, then plunging headlong back to earth. Or a man, after the final agony, taking a last deep breath—and dying. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 376

Note

Similes of fatalistic inevitability (iron to magnet, stone to earth, dying breath) that paradoxically frame total subjugation as ecstasy.