Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [592]

Once, I remember, when I was a child, we were taken to the Accumulator Tower. On the very top landing, I bent over the glass parapet. Below, dots of people, and my heart thumped sweetly: What if? At that time I had merely seized the rail more firmly; now, I jumped. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 592

Note

A brilliant structural echo linking a childhood memory of vertigo directly to the final, irrevocable moral freefall of the protagonist.