Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [727]

And for some reason, the memory of an incident this morning at the building site flashed before me. In jest, someone had placed a watch under a hundred-ton hammer—the hammer swung, a gust of wind in the face, and a hundred tons delicately, quietly came to rest upon the fragile watch. — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 727

Note

A domestic scene of immense scale juxtaposed with fragility encapsulates the terrifying precision and weight of the One State’s power over an individual life.