This must be similar to what a woman feels when she first senses within herself the pulse of a new, still tiny, still blind little human being.

But since this record will be a derivative of our life, of the mathematically perfect life of the One State, will it not be, of itself, and regardless of my will or skill, a poem? It will. I shall merely attempt to record what I see and think, or, to be more exact, what we think (precisely so-we, and let this We be the title of my record). My pen, accustomed to figures, does not know how to create the music of assonances and rhymes. I, D-503, Builder of the Integral, am only one of the mathematicians of the One State. The great, divine, exact, wise straight line- the wisest of all lines. For the line of the One State is the straight line. Yes, to unbend the wild, primitive curve and straighten it to a tangent-an asymptote-a straight line. Yes, to integrate the grandiose cosmic equation. I write this, and I feel: my cheeks are burning. Long live the One State, long live the numbers, long live the Benefactor! This will be the first cargo to be carried by the Integral. In the name of the Benefactor, therefore, we proclaim to all the numbers of the One State:Įveryone who feels capable of doing so must compose tracts, odes, manifestoes, poems, or other works extolling the beauty and the grandeur of the One State. But before resorting to arms, we shall try the power of words. If they fail to understand that we bring them mathematically infallible happiness, it will be our duty to compel them to be happy. You will subjugate the unknown beings on other planets, who may still be living in the primitive condition of freedom, to the beneficent yoke of reason. Yours will be a still more glorious feat: you will integrate the infinite equation of the universe with the aid of the fire-breathing, electric, glass Integral. One thousand years ago your heroic ancestors subdued the entire terrestrial globe to the power of the One State. The great historic hour when the first Integral will soar into cosmic space is drawing near. The building of the Integral will be completed in one hundred and twenty days. I shall simply copy, word for word, the proclamation that appeared today in the One State Gazette:

Zamyatin my