We by Yevgeny Zamyatin — Read

It was long ago during my school-days, when I first encountered the square-root of minus one. I remember it all very clearly; a bright globe-like class hall, about a hundred round heads of children and Plappa--our mathematician. We nicknamed him Plappa; it was a very much used-up mathematician, loosely screwed together; as the member of the class who was on duty that day would be putting the plug into the socket behind we would hear at first from the megaphone, "Plap-plap-plap-plap--tshshsh." Only then the lesson would follow. One day Plappa told us about irrational numbers, and I remember I wept and banged the table with my fist and cried, "I do not want that square-root of minus one; take that square-root of minus one away!" This irrational root grew into me as something strange, foreign, terrible; it tortured me; it could not be thought out. It could not be defeated because it was beyond reason.

Now that square-root of minus one is here again. I read over what I have written and I clearly see that I was insincere with myself, that I lied to myself in order to avoid seeing that square-root of minus one. My sickness, etc., is all nonsense; _I could go there_. I feel sure that if such a thing had happened a week ago I should have gone without hesitating. Why then am I unable to go now?. Why?