Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [574]

I am like a photographic plate. I retain every impression with an oddly alien, indifferent, senseless precision: a golden crescent—the light reflected on the loud-speaker; under it, a child, a living illustration, stretches toward the crescent; the edge of its microscopic unif in its mouth; a tightly dosed little fist, the little thumb inside it; a light shadow across the wrist—a plump, tiny fold. Like a photographic plate, I record: the bare foot hangs over the edge now, the rosy fan of toes is stepping on air—a moment, and it will tumble to the floor. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 574

Note

The narrator’s consciousness rendered as a passive recording device, where trauma and maternal observation bypass thought entirely and register as photographic chemistry.