DARKNESS AT NOON

THE CELL DOOR SLAMMED BEHIND RUBASHOV.
He remained leaning against the door for a few seconds, and lit a cigarette. On the bed to his right lay two fairly clean blankets, and the straw mattress looked newly filled. The wash-basin to his left had no plug, but the tap functioned. The can next to it had been freshly disinfected, it did not smell. The walls on both sides were of solid brick, which would stifle the sound of tapping, but where the heating and drain pipe penetrated it, it had been plastered and resounded quite well; besides, the heating pipe itself seemed to be noise-conducting. The window started at eye-level; one could see down into the courtyard without having to pull oneself up by the bars. So far everything was in order.
He yawned, took his coat off, rolled it up and put it on the mattress as a pillow. He looked out into the yard. The snow shimmered yellow in the double light of the moon and the electric lanterns. All round the yard, along the walls, a narrow track had been cleared for the daily exercise. Dawn had not yet appeared; the stars still shone clear and frostily, in spite of the lanterns. On the rampart of the outside wall, which lay opposite Rubashov's cell, a soldier with slanted rifle was marching the hundred steps up and down; he stamped at every step as if on parade. From time to time the yellow light of the lanterns flashed on his bayonet.
Rubashov took his shoes off, still standing at the window. He put out his cigarette, laid the stump on the floor at the end of his bedstead, and remained sitting on the mattress for a few minutes. He went back to the window once more. The courtyard was still; the sentry was just turning; above the machine-gun tower he saw a streak of the Milky Way.
Rubashov stretched himself on the bunk and wrapped himself in the top blanket. It was five o'clock and it was unlikely that one had to get up here before seven in winter. He was very sleepy and, thinking it over, decided that he would hardly be brought up for examination foranother three or four days . He took his pince-nez off, laid it on the stone-paved floor next the cigarette stump, smiled and shut his eyes. He was warmly wrapped up in the blanket, and felt protected; for the first time in months he was not afraid of his dreams.
When a few minutes later the warder turned the light off from outside, and looked through the spy-hole into his cell, Rubashov, ex-Commissar of the People, slept, his back turned to the wall, with his head on his outstretched left arm, which stuck stiffly out of the bed; only the hand on the end of it hung loosely and twitched in his sleep.


2

An hour earlier, when the two officials of the People's Commissariat of the Interior were hammering on
Rubashov's door, in order to arrest him, Rubashov was just dreaming that he was being arrested.
The knocking had grown louder and Rubashov strained to wake up. He was practised in tearing himself out of nightmares, as the dream of his first arrest had for years returned periodically and ran its course with the regularity of clockwork. Sometimes, by a strong effort of will, he managed to stop the clockwork, to pull himself out of the dream by his own effort, but this time he did not succeed; the last weeks had exhausted him, he sweated and panted in his sleep; the clockwork hummed, the dream went on.
He dreamed, as always, that there was a hammering on his door, and that three men stood outside, waiting to arrest him. He could see them through the closed door, standing outside, banging against its framework. They had on brand-new uniforms, the becoming costume of the Praetorian guards of the German Dictatorship; on their caps and sleeves they wore their insignia: the aggressively barbed cross; in their free hand they carried grotesquely big pistols; their straps and trappings smelled of fresh leather. Now they were in his room, at his bedside. Two were overgrown peasant lads with thick lips and fish-eyes; the third was short and fat. They stood by his bed, holding their pistols in their hands, and breathing heavily at him. It was quite still save for the asthmatic panting of the short, fat one. Then someone in an upper story pulled a plug and the water rushed down evenly through the pipes in the walls.
The clockwork was running down. The hammering on Rubashov's door became louder; the two men outside, who had come to arrest him, hammered alternatively and blew on their frozen hands. But Rubashov could not wake up, although he knew that now would follow a particularly painful scene: the three still stand by his bed and he tries to put on his dressing-gown. But the sleeve is turned inside out; he cannot manage to put his arm into it. He strives vainly until a kind of paralysis descends on him: he cannot move, although everything depends on his getting the sleeve on in time. This tormenting helplessness lasts a number of seconds, during which Rubashov moans and feels the cold wetness on his temples and the hammering on his door penetrates his sleep like a distant roll of drums; his arm under the pillow twitches in the feverish effort to find the sleeve of his dressing-gown; then at last he is released by the first smashing blow over the ear with the butt of the pistol. ...
With the familiar sensation, repeated and lived through again a hundred times, of this first blow--from which his deafness dated--he usually woke up. For a while he would still shiver and his hand, jammed under the pillow, would continue to strain for the dressing-gown sleeve; for, as a rule, before he was fully awake, he still had the last and worst stage to go through. It consisted of a dizzy, shapeless feeling that this awakening was the real dream and that in fact he was stilllying on the damp stone floor of the dark cell, at his feet the can, next to his head the jug of water and a few crumbs of bread. ...
This time also, for a few seconds, the bemused conditionheld, the uncertainty whether his groping hand would touch the can or the switch of his bedside lamp. Then the light blazed on and the mist parted. Rubashov breathed deeply several times and, like a convalescent, his hands folded on his breast, enjoyed the delicious feeling of freedom and safety. He dried his forehead and the bald patch on the back of his head with the sheet, and blinked up with already returning irony at the colour-print of No. 1, leader of the Party, which hung over his bed on the wall of his room-- and on the walls of all the rooms next to, above or under his; on all the walls of the house, of the town, and of the enormous country for which he had fought and suffered, and which now had taken him up again in its enormous, protecting lap. He was now fully awake; but the hammering on his door went on.


3
The two men who had come to arrest Rubashov stood outside on the dark landing and consulted each other. The porter Vassilij, who had shown them the way upstairs, stood in the open lift doorway and
panted with fear. He was a thin old man; above the torn collar of the military overcoat he had thrown over his nightshirt appeared a broad red scar which gave him a scrofulous look. It was the result of a neck wound received in the Civil War, throughout which he had fought in Rubashov's Partisan regiment. Later Rubashov had been ordered abroad and Vassilij had heard of him only occasionally, from the newspaper which his daughter read to him in the evenings. She had read to him the speeches which Rubashov made to the Congresses; they were long and difficult to understand, and Vassilij could never quite manage to find in them the tone of voice of the little bearded Partisan commander who had known such beautiful oaths that even the Holy Madonna of Kasan must have smiled at them. Usually Vassilij fell asleep in the middle of these speeches, but always woke up when his daughter came to the final sentences and the applause, solemnly raising her voice. To every one of the ceremonial endings, "Long live the International! Long live the Revolution, Long live No. 1", Vassilij added a heartfelt "Amen" under his breath, so that the daughter should not hear it; then took his jacket off, crossed himself secretly and with a bad conscience and went to bed. Above his bed also hung a portrait of No.1, and next to it a photograph of Rubashov as Partisan commander. If that photograph were found, he would probably also be taken away.
It was cold, dark and very quiet on the staircase. The younger of the two men from the Commissariat of the Interior proposed to shoot the lock of the door to pieces. Vassilij leant against the lift door; he had not had the time to put on his boots properly, and his hands trembled so much that he could not tie the laces. The elder of the two men was against shooting; the arrest had to be carried out discreetly. They; both blew on their stiff hands and began again to hammer against the door; the younger banged on it with the butt of his revolver. A few floors below them a woman screamed in a piercing voice. "Tell her to shut up," said the young man to Vassilij. "Be quiet," shouted Vassilij. "Here is Authority." The woman became quiet at once. The young man changed over to belabouring the door with his boots. The noise filled the whole staircase; at last the door fell open.
The three of them stood by Rubashov's bed, the young man with his pistol in his hand, the old man holding himself stiffly as though standing to attention; Vassilij stood a few steps behind them, leaning against the wall. Rubashov was still drying the sweat from the back of his head; he looked at them short-sightedly with sleepy eyes. "Citizen Rubashov, Nicolas Saimanovitch, we arrest you in the name of the law," said the young man. Rubashov felt for his glasses under the pillow and propped himself up a bit. Now that he had his glasses on, his eyes had the expression which Vassilij and the elder official knew from old photographs and colour-prints. The elder official stood more stiffly to attention; the young one, who had grown up under new heroes, went a step closer to the bed; all three saw that he was about to say or do something brutal to hide his awkwardness.
"Put that gun away, comrade," said Rubashov to him. "What do you want with me, anyhow?"
"You hear you are arrested," said the boy. "Put your clothes on and don't make a fuss."
"Have you got a warrant?" asked Rubashov.
The elder official pulled a paper out of his pocket, passed it to Rubashov and stood again to attention. Rubashov read it attentively. "Well, good," he said. "One never is any the wiser from those things; the devil take you."
"Put your clothes on and hurry up," said the boy. One saw that his brutality was no longer put on, but was natural to him. A fine generation have we produced, thought Rubashov. He recalled the propaganda posters on which youth was always represented with a laughing face. He felt very tired. "Pass me my dressing-gown, instead of fumbling about with your revolver," he said to the boy. The boy reddened, but remained silent. The elder official passed the dressing-gown to Rubashov. Rubashov worked his arm into
the sleeve. "This time it goes at least," he said with a strained smile. The three others did not understand and said nothing. They watched him as he got slowly out of bed and collected his crumpled clothes together.
The house was silent after the one shrill woman's cry, but they had the feeling that all the inhabitants were awake in their beds, holding their breath.
Then they heard someone in an upper story pull the plug and the water rushing down evenly through the pipes.

4

At the front door stood the car in which the officials had come, a new American make. It was still dark; the chauffeur had put on the headlights, the street was asleep or pretended to be. They got in, first the lad, then Rubashov, then the elder official. The chauffeur, who was also in uniform, started the car. Beyond the corner the asphalt surface stopped; they were still in the centre of the town; all around them were brig modern buildings of nine and ten stories, but the roads were country cart tracks of frozen mud, with a thin powdering of snow in the cracks. The chauffeur drove at a walking pace and the superbly sprung motor car creaked and groaned like an oxen wagon.
"Drive faster," said the lad, who could not bear the silence in the car.
The chauffeur shrugged his shoulders without looking round. He had given Rubashov an indifferent and unfriendly look as he got into the car. Rubashov had once had an accident; the man at the wheel of the ambulance-car had looked at him in the same way. The slow, jolting drive through the dead streets, with the wavering light of the head lamps before them, was difficult to stand. "How far is it?" asked Rubashov, without looking at his companions. He nearly added: to the hospital. "A good half-hour," said the older man in uniform. Rubashov dug cigarettes out of his pocket, put one in his mouth and passed the packet round automatically. The young man refused abruptly, the elder one took two and passed one on to the chauffeur. The chauffeur touched his cap and gave everybody a light, holding the steering-wheel with one hand. Rubashov's heart became lighter; at the same time he was annoyed with himself for it.Just the time to get sentimental, he thought. But he could not resist the temptation to speak and to awaken a little human warmth around him. "A pity for the car," he said. "Foreign cars cost quite a bit of gold, and after half a year on our roads they are finished."
"There you are quite right. Our roads are very backward," said the old official. By his tone Rubashov realized that he had understood his helplessness. He felt like a dog to whom one had just thrown a bone; he decided not to speak again. But suddenly the boy said aggressively:
"Are they any better in the capitalist states?"
Rubashov had to grin. "Were you ever outside?" he asked
"I know all the same what it is like there," said the boy. "You need not try to tell me stories about it."
"Whom do you take me for, exactly?" asked Rubashov very quietly. But he could not prevent himself from adding: "You really ought to study the Party history a bit."
The boy was silent and looked fixedly at the driver's back. Nobody spoke. For the third time the driver choked off the panting engine and let it in again, cursing. They jolted through the suburbs; in the appearance of the miserable wooden houses nothing was changed. Above their crooked silhouettes hung the moon, pale and cold


5

In every corridor of the new model prison electric light was burning. It lay bleakly on the iron galleries, on the bare whitewashed walls, on the cell doors with the name cards and the black holes of the judas-eyes. This colourlesslight, and the shrill echoless sound of their steps on the tiled paving were so familiar to Rubashov that for a few seconds he played with the illusion that he was dreaming again. He tried to make himself believe that the whole thing was not real. If I succeed in believing that I am dreaming, then it will really be a dream, he thought.
He tried so intensely that he nearly became dizzy; then immediately a choking shame rose in him. This has to be gone through, he thought. Right through to the endThey reached cell No. 404. Above the spy-hole was a card with his name on it, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov. They have prepared everything nicely, he thought; the sight of his name on the card made an uncanny impression on him. He wanted to ask the warder for an extra blanket, but the door had already slammed behind him.


6

At regular intervals the warder had peeped through the judas into Rubashov's cell. Rubashov had been lying tranquilly on the bunk; only his hand had twitched from time to time in his sleep. Beside the bunk lay his pince-nez and a cigarette stump on the tiles.
At seven o'clock in the morning--two hours after he had been brought to cell 404--Rubashov was woken by a bugle call. He had slept dreamlessly, and his head was clear. The bugle repeated three times the same blaring sequence. The trembling tones re-echoed and died out; a malevolent silence remained.
It was not yet quite day; the contours of the can and of the wash-basin were softened by the dim light. The window grate was a black pattern silhouetted against the dingy glass; top left a broken pane had a piece of newspaper stuck over it. Rubashov sat up, reached for the pince-nez and the cigarette stump at the end of his bed and lay back again. He put on the pince-nez and managed to make the stump glow. The silence lasted. In all the whitewashed cells of this honeycomb in concrete, men were simultaneously arising from their bunks, cursing and groping about on the tiles, yet in the isolation cells one heard nothing--except from time to time retreating footsteps in the corridor. Rubashov knew that he was in an isolation cell and that he was to stay there until he was shot. He drew his fingers through his short, pointed beard, smoked his cigarette-end and lay still.
So I shall be shot, thought Rubashov. Blinking, he watched the movement of his big toe, which stuck up vertically at the end of the bed. He felt warm, secure and very tired; he had no objection to dozing straight off into death, there and then, if only one let him remain lying under the warm blanket. "So they are going to shoot you," he told himself. He slowly moved his toes in the sock and a verse occurred to him which compared the feet of Christ to a white roebuck in a thornbush. He rubbed his pince-nez; on his sleeve with the gesture familiar to all his followers. He felt in the warmth of the blanket almost perfectly happy and feared only one thing, to have to get up and move. "So you are going to be destroyed," he said to himself half-aloud and lit another cigarette, although only three were left. The first cigarettes on an empty stomach caused him sometimes a slight feeling of drunkenness; and he was already in that peculiar state of excitement familiar to him from former experiences of the nearness of death. He knew at the same time that this condition was reprehensible and, from a certain point of view, unpermissible, but at the moment he felt no inclination to take that point of view. Instead, he observed the play of his stockinged toes. He smiled. A warm wave of sympathy for his own body, for which usually he had no liking, played over him and its imminent destruction filled him with a self-pitying delight. "The old guard is dead," he said to himself. "We are the last." "We are going to be destroyed." "For golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust. ..." He tried to recall the tune of "come to dust ...", but only the words came to him. "The old guard is dead," he repeated and tried to remember their faces. He could only recall a few. Of the first Chairman of the International, who had been executed as a traitor, he could only conjure up a piece of a check waistcoat over the slightly rotund belly. He had never worn braces, always leather belts. The second Prime Minister of the Revolutionary State, also executed, had bitten his nails in moments of danger. ... History will rehabilitate you, thought Rubashov, without particular conviction. What does history know of nail-biting? He smoked and thought of the dead, and of the humiliation which had preceded their death. Nevertheless, he could not bring himself to hate No. 1 as he ought to. He had often looked at the colour-print of No. 1 hanging over his bed and tried to hate it. They had, between themselves, given him many names, but in the end it was No. 1 that stuck. The horror which No. 1 emanated, above all consisted in the possibility that he was in the right, and that all those whom he killed had to admit, even with the bullet in the back of their necks, that he conceivably might be in the right. There was no certainty; only the appeal to that mocking oracle they called History, who gave her sentence only when the jaws of the appealer had long since fallen to dust.
Rubashov had the feeling that he was being watched through the spy-hole. Without looking, he knew that a pupil pressed to the hole was staring into the cell; a moment later the key did actually grind in the heavy lock. It took some time before the door opened. The warder, a little old man in slippers, remained at the door:
"Why didn't you get up?" he asked.
"I am ill," said Rubashov.
"What is the matter with you? You cannot be taken to the doctor before to-morrow."
"Toothache," said Rubashov.
" Toothache,is it?" said the warder, shuffled out and banged the door.
Now I can at least remain lying here quietly, thought Rubashov, but it gave him no more pleasure. The stale warmth of the blanket became a nuisance to him, and he threw it off. He again tried to watch the movements of his toes, but it bored him. In the heel of each sock there was a hole. He wanted to darn them, but the thought of having to knock on the door and request needle and thread from the warder prevented him; the needle would probably be refused him in any case. He had a sudden wild craving for a newspaper. It was so strong that he could smell the printer's ink and hear the crackling and rustling of the pages. Perhaps a revolution had broken out last night, or the head of a state had been murdered, or an American had discovered the means to counteract the force of gravity. His arrest could not be in it yet; inside the country, it would be kept secret for a while, but abroad the sensation would soon leak through, they would print ten-year-old photographs dug out of the newspaper archives and publish a lot of nonsense about him and No. 1. He now no longer wanted a newspaper, but with the same greed desired to know what was going on in the brain of No. 1. He saw him sitting at his desk, elbows propped, heavy and gloomy, slowly dictating to a stenographer. Other people walked up and down while dictating, blew smoke-rings or played with a ruler. No. 1 did not move, did not play,did not blow rings. ... Rubashov noticed suddenly that he himself had been walking up and down for the last five minutes; he had risen from the bed without realizing it. He was caught again by his old ritual of never walking on the edges of the paving stones, and he already knew the pattern by heart. But his thoughts had not left No. 1 for a second, No. 1, who, sitting at his desk and dictating immovably, had gradually turned into his own portrait, into that well-known colour-print, which hung over every bed or sideboard in the country and stared at people with its frozen eyes.
Rubashov walked up and down in the cell, from the door to the window and back, between bunk, wash-basin and bucket, six and a half steps there, six and a half steps back. At the door he turned to the right, at the window to the left: it was an old prison habit; if one did not change the direction of the turn one rapidly became dizzy. What went on in No. 1's brain? He pictured to himself a cross-section through that brain, painted neatly with grey water-colour on a sheet of paper stretched on a drawing-board with drawing pins. The whorls of grey matter swelled to entrails, they curled round one another like muscular snakes, became vague and misty like the spiral nebulae on astronomical charts. ... What went on in the inflated grey whorls? One knew everything about the far-away nebula; but nothing about the whorls. That was probably the reason that history was more of an oracle than a science. Perhaps later, much later, it would be taught by means of tables of statistics, supplemented by such anatomical sections. The teacher would draw on the blackboard an algebraic formula representing the conditions of life of the masses of a particular nation at a particular.period : "Here, citizens, you see the objective factors which conditioned this historical process." And, pointing with his ruler to a grey foggy landscape between the second and third lobe of No. 1's brain: "Now here you see the subjective reflection of these factors. It was this which in the second quarter of the twentieth century led to the triumph of the totalitarian principle in the East of Europe." Until this stage was reached, politics would remain bloody dilettantism, mere superstition and black magic. ...
Rubashov heard the sound of several people marching down the corridor in step. His first thought was: now the beating-up will start. He stopped in the middle of the cell, listening, his chin pushed forward. The marching steps came to a halt before one of the neighboring cells, a low command was heard, the keys jangled. Then there was silence.
Rubashov stood stiffly between the bed and the bucket, held his breath, and waited for the first scream. He remembered that the first scream, in which terror still predominated over physical pain, was usually the worst; what followed was already more bearable, one got used to it and after a time one could even draw conclusions on the method of torture from the tone and rhythm of the screams. Towards the end, most people behaved in the same way, however different they were in temperament and voice: the screams became weaker, changed over into whining and choking. Usually the door would slam soon after. The keys would jangle again; and the first scream of the next victim often came even before they had touched him, at the mere sight of the men in the doorway.
Rubashov stood in the middle of his cell and waited for the first scream. He rubbed his glasses on his sleeve and said to himself that he would not scream this time either, whatever happened to him. He repeated this sentence as if praying with a rosary. He stood and waited; the scream still did not come. Then he heard a faint clanging, a voice murmured something, the cell-door slammed. The footsteps moved to the next cell.
Rubashov went to the spy-hole and looked into the corridor. The men stopped nearly opposite his cell, at No. 407. There was the old warder with two orderlies dragging a tub of tea, a third carrying a basket with slices of black bread, and two uniformed officials with pistols. There was no beating-up; they were bringing breakfast. ...
No. 407 was just being given bread. Rubashov could not see him. No. 407 was presumably standing in the regulation position, a step behind the door; Rubashov could only see his forearms and hands. The arms were bare and very thin; like two parallel sticks, they stuck out of the doorway into the corridor. The palms of the invisible No. 407 were turned upwards, curved in the shape of a bowl. When he had taken the bread, he clasped his hands and withdrew into the darkness of his cell. The door slammed.
Rubashov abandoned the spy-hole and resumed his marching up and down. He ceased rubbing his spectacles on his sleeve, put them in place,breathed deeply and with relief. He whistled a tune and waited for his breakfast. He remembered with a slight feeling of uneasiness those thin arms and the curved hands; they reminded him vaguely of something he could not define. The outlines of those stretched-out hands and even the shadows on them were familiar to him--familiar and yet gone from his memory like an old tune or the smell of a narrow street in a harbour.

7

The procession had unlocked and slammed a row of doors, but not yet his.Rubashov went back to the Judas, to see whether they were coming at last; he was looking forward to the hot tea. The tub had been steaming, and thin slices of lemon had floated on its surface. He took off his pince-nez and pressed his eye to the spy-hole. His range of sight held four of the cells opposite: Nos. 401 to 407. Above the cells ran a narrow iron gallery; behind it were more cells, those on the second floor. The procession was just coming back along the corridor from the right; evidently they first did the odd numbers, then the even. Now they stood at No. 408; Rubashov only saw the backs of the two uniformed men with the revolver belts; the rest of the procession stood outside his view-range. The door slammed; now they all came to No. 406. Rubashov saw again the steaming tub and the orderly with the bread basket in which only a few slices were left. The door of No. 406 slammed instantly; the cell was uninhabited. The procession approached, passed his door and stopped at No. 402.
Rubashov began to drum on the door with his fists. He saw that the two orderlies with the tub looked at each other and glanced at his door. The warder busied himself with the lock on the door of No. 402 and pretended not to hear. The two men in uniform stood with their backs to Rubashov's spy-hole. Now the bread was being passed in through the door of No. 402; the procession started to move on. Rubashov drummed more loudly. He took a shoe off and banged on the door with it.
The bigger of the two men in uniform turned round, stared expressionlessly at Rubashov's door and turned away again. The warder slammed the door of No. 402. The orderlies with the tub of tea stood about hesitantly. The man in uniform who had turned round said something to the older warder, who shrugged his shoulders and with jangling keys shuffled to Rubashov's door. The orderlies with the tub followed him; the orderly with the bread said something through the spy-hole to No. 402.
Rubashov drew back a step from his door and waited for it to open. The tension inside him gave way suddenly; he did not care any more whether he was given tea or not. The tea in the tub had no longer steamed on the way back and the slices of lemon on the rest of the pale yellow liquid had looked limp and shrunken.
The key was turned in his door,then a staring pupil appeared in the spy-hole and disappeared again. The door flew open. Rubashov had seated himself on the bed and was putting his shoe on again. The warder held the door open for the big man in uniform who entered the cell. He had a round, clean-shaven skull and expressionless eyes. His stiff uniform creaked; so did his boots; Rubashov thought he could smell the leather of his revolver belt. He stopped next to the bucket and looked round the cell, which seemed to have become smaller through his presence.
"You have not cleaned up your cell," he said to Rubashov. "You know the regulations, surely."
"Why was I omitted at breakfast?" said Rubashov, examining the officer through his pince-nez.
"If you want to argue with me, you will have to stand up," said the officer.
"I haven't got the slightest desire to argue or even to speak to you," said Rubashov, and laced up his shoe. "Then don't bang on the door next time, else the usual disciplinary measures will have to be applied to you," said the officer. He looked round the cell again. "The prisoner has no mop to clean the floor," he said to the warder.
The warder said something to the bread-orderly, who vanished down the corridor at a trot. The two other orderlies stood in the open doorway and gazed into the cell with curiosity. The second officer had his back turned; he stood in the corridor with his legs straddled and his hands behind his back.
"The prisoner has no eating bowl either," said Rubashov, still busied with the lacing of his shoe. "I suppose you want to save me the trouble of a hunger-strike. I admire your new methods."
"You are mistaken," said the officer, looking at him expressionlessly. He had a broad scar on his shaven skull and wore the ribbon of the Revolutionary Order in his buttonhole. So he was in the Civil War, after all, thought Rubashov. But that is long ago and makes no difference now. ...
"You are mistaken. You were left out at breakfast because you had reported yourself sick."
"Toothache," said the old warder, who stood leaning against the door. He still woreslippers, his uniform was crumpled and spotted with grease.
"As you like," said Rubashov. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask whether it was the latest achievement of the ré gime to treat invalids by compulsory fasting, but he controlled himself. He was sick of the whole scene.
The bread-orderly came running, panting and flapping a dirty rag. The warder took the rag out of his hand and threw it in a corner next to the bucket.
"Have you any more requests?" asked the officer without irony.
"Leave me alone and stop this comedy," said Rubashov. The officer turned togo, the warder jangled his bunch of keys. Rubashov went to the window, turning his back on them. When the door had slammed he remembered that he had forgotten the chief thing and with a bound he was back at the door.
"Paper and pencil," he shouted through the spy-hole. He took off his pince-nez and stuck his eye to the hole to see whether they turned round. He had shouted very loudly, but the procession moved down the corridor as if it had heard nothing. The last he saw of it was the back of the officer with the shaven skull and the broad leather belt with the revolver-case attached to it.

8
Rubashov resumed walking up and down his cell, six and a half steps to the window, six and a half steps back. The scene had stirred him; he recapitulated it in minute detail while rubbing his pince-nez on his sleeve. He tried to hold on to the hatred he had for a few minutes felt for the officer with the scar; he thought it might stiffen him for the coming struggle. Instead, he fell once more under the familiar and fatal constraint to put himself in the position of his opponent, and to see the scene through the other's eyes. There he had sat, this man Rubashov, on the bunk-- small, bearded, arrogant-- and in an obviously provocative manner, had put his shoe on over the sweaty sock. Of course, this man Rubashov had his merits and a great past; but it was one thing to see him on the platform at a congress and another, on a palliasse in a cell. So that is the legendary Rubashov, thought Rubashov in the name of the officer with the expressionless eyes. Screams for his breakfast like a schoolboy and isn't even ashamed. Cell not cleaned up. Holes in his sock.Querulous intellectual.Conspired against law and order: whether for money or on principle makes no difference. We did not make the revolution for cranks. True, he helped to make it; at that time he was a man; but now he is old and self-righteous, ripe for liquidation. Perhaps he was so even at that time; there were many soap bubbles in the revolution which burst afterwards. If he still had a vestige of self-respect, he would clean his cell.
For a few seconds Rubashov wondered whether he should really scrub the tiles. He stood hesitantly in the middle of the cell, then put his pince-nez on again and propped himself at the window.
The yard was now in daylight, a greyish light tinged with yellow, not unfriendly, promising more snow. It was about eight-- only three hours had passed since he first entered the cell. The walls surrounding the yard looked like those of barracks; iron gates were in front of all the windows, the cells behind them were too dark for one to see into them. It was impossible even to see whether anyone stood directly behind his window, looking down, like him, at the snow in the yard. It was nice snow, slightly frozen; it would crackle if one walked on it. On both sides of the path which ran round the yard at a distance of ten paces from the walls, a hilly parapet of snow had been shovelled up. On the rampart opposite the sentinel was pacing up and down. Once, when turning, he spat in a wide arc into the snow; then leant over the ramp to see where it had fallen and frozen.
The old disease, thought Rubashov. Revolutionaries should not think through other people's minds.
Or, perhaps they should? Or even ought to?
How can one change the world if one identifies oneself with everybody?
How else can one change it?
He who understands and forgives--where would he find a motive to act?
Where would he not?
They will shoot me, thought Rubashov. My motives will be of no interest to them. He leaned his forehead on the window pane. The yard lay white and still.
So he stood a while, without thinking, feeling the cool glass on his forehead. Gradually, he became conscious of a small but persistent ticking sound in his cell.
He turned round listening. The knocking was so quiet that at first he.could not distinguish from which wall it came. While he was listening, it stopped. He started tapping himself, first on the wall over the bucket, in the direction of No. 406, but got no answer. He tried the other wall, which separated him from No. 402, next to his bed. Here he got an answer. Rubashov sat down comfortably on the bunk, from where he could keep an eye on the spy-hole, his heart beating. The first contact was always very exciting.
No. 402 was now tapping regularly; three times with short intervals, then a pause, then again three times, then again a pause, then again three times. Rubashov repeated the same series to indicate that he heard. He was anxious to find out whether the other knew the "quadratic alphabet"-- otherwise there would be a lot of fumbling until he had taught it to him. The wall was thick, with poor resonance; he had to put his head close to it to hear clearly and at the same time he had to watch the spy-hole. No. 402 had obviously had a lot of practice; he tapped distinctly and unhurriedly, probably with some hard object such as a pencil. While Rubashov was memorizing the numbers, he tried, being out of practice, to visualize the square of letters with the 25 compartments-- five horizontal rows with five letters in each.
No. 402 first tapped five times-- accordingly the fifth row: V to Z; then twice; so it was the second letter of the row: W. Then a pause; then two taps-- the second row, F-- J; then three taps-- the third letter of the row: H. Then three times and then five times; so fifth letter of the third row: O. He stopped.
WHO?
A practical person, thought Rubashov; he wants to know at once whom he has to deal with. According to the revolutionary etiquette, he should have started with a political tag; then given the news; then talked of food and tobacco; much later only, days later, if at all, did one introduce oneself. However, Rubashov's experience had been so far confined to countries in which the Party was persecuted, not persecutor, and the members of the Party, for conspiratorial reasons, knew each other only by their Christian names--and changed even these so often that a name lost all meaning. Here, evidently, it was different. Rubashov hesitated as to whether he should give his name. No. 402 became impatient; he knocked again: WHO?
Well, why not?thought Rubashov. He tapped out his full name: NICOLAS SALMANOVITCH RUBASHOV, and waited for the result.
For a long time there was no answer. Rubashov smiled; he could appreciate the shock it had given his neighbour. He waited a full minute and then another; finally, he shrugged his shoulders and stood up from the bunk. He resumed his walk through the cell, but at every turn he stopped, listening to the wall. The wall remained mute. He rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve, went slowly, with tired steps, to the door and looked through the spy-hole into the corridor.
The corridor was empty; the electric lamps spread their stale, faded light; one did not hear the slightest sound. Why had No. 402 become dumb?
Probably from fear; he was afraid of compromising him.self through Rubashov. Perhaps No. 402 was an unpolitical doctor or engineer who trembled at the thought of his dangerous neighbour. Certainly without political experience, else he would not have asked for the name as a start.Presumably mixed up in some affair of sabotage. Has obviously been in prison quite a time already, has perfected his tapping and is devoured by the wish to prove his innocence. Still in the simple belief that his subjective guilt or innocence makes a difference, and with no idea of the higher interests which are really at stake. In all probability he was now sitting on his bunk, writing his hundredth protest to the authorities, who will never read it, or the hundredth letter to his wife, who will never receive it; has in despair grown a beard-- a black Pushkin beard-- has given up washing and fallen into the habit of biting his nails and of erotic day-dreams. Nothing is worse in prison than the consciousness of one's innocence; it prevents acclimatization and undermines one's morale. ... Suddenly the ticking started again.
Rubashov sat down quickly on the bunk; but he had already missed the first two letters. No. 402 was now tapping quickly and less clearly, he was obviously very excited:
... RVES YOU RIGHT.
"Serves you right."
That was unexpected. No. 402 was a conformist. He hated the oppositional heretics, as one should, believed that history ran on rails according to an infallible plan and an infallible pointsman, No. 1. He believed that his own arrest was merely the result of amisunderstanding, and that all the catastrophes of the last years--from China to Spain, from the famine to the extermination of the old guard-- were either regrettable accidents or caused by the devilish tricks of Rubashov and his oppositional friends. No. 402's
Pushkin beard vanished; he now had a clean-shaven, fanatical face; he kept his cell painfully tidy and conformed strictly to the regulations. There was no sense in arguing with him; this kind was unteachable. But neither was there any sense in cutting off the only and perhaps the last contact with the world.
WHO?knocked Rubashov very clearly and slowly.
The answer came in agitated fits and starts:
NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
AS YOU LIKE, tapped Rubashov, and stood up to resume his wandering through the cell, taking the conversation to be ended. But the tapping started again, this time very loudly and ringingly-- No. 402 had obviously taken off a shoe in order to give more weight to his words:
LONG LIVE H.M. THE EMPEROR!
So that's it, thought Rubashov. There still exist genuine and authentic counter-revolutionaries-- and we thought that nowadays they only occurred in the speeches of No. 1, as scapegoats for his failures. But there sits a real one, an alibi for No. 1 in flesh and blood, roaring, just as he should: longlive the Monarch. ...
AMEN, tapped out Rubashov, grinning.The answer came immediately, still louder if possible.
SWINE!
Rubashov was amusing himself. He took off his pince-nez and tapped with the metal edge, in order to change the tone, with a drawling and distinguished intonation:
DIDN'T QUITE UNDERSTAND.
No. 402 seemed to go intoa frenzy . He hammered out HOUN'--, but the D did not come. Instead, his fury suddenly flown, he tapped:
WHY HAVE YOU BEEN LOCKED UP?
What touching simplicity. ... The face of No. 402 underwent a new transformation. It became that of a young Guards officer, handsome and stupid. Perhaps he even wore a monocle. Rubashov tapped with his pince-nez:
POLITICAL DIVERGENCIES.
A short pause.No. 402 was obviously searching his brain for a sarcastic answer. It came at last:
BRAVO! THE WOLVES DEVOUR EACH OTHER.
Rubashov gave no answer. He had enough of this sort of entertainment and started on his wanderings again. But the officer in 402 had become conversational. He tapped:
RUBASHOV ...
Well, this was just about verging on familiarity.
YES? answered Rubashov.
No. 402 seemed to hesitate; then came quite a long sentence:
WHEN DID YOU LAST SLEEP WITH A WOMAN?
Certainly No. 402 wore an eye-glass; probably he was tapping with it and the bared eye was twitching nervously. Rubashov did not feel repelled. The man at least showed himself as he was; which was pleasanter than if he had tapped out monarchist manifestos. Rubashov thought it over for a bit, and then tapped:
THREE WEEKS AGO.
The answer came at once:
TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT.
Well, really, that was going a bit far. Rubashov's first impulse was to break off the conversation; but he remembered the man might later become very useful as a connecting link to No. 400 and the cells beyond. The cell to the left was obviously uninhabited; there the chain broke off. Rubashov racked his brain. An old pre-war song came to his memory, which he had heard as a student, in some cabaret where black-stockinged ladies danced the French can-can. He sighed resignedly and tapped with his pince-nez:
SNOWY BREASTS FITTING INTO CHAMPAGNEGLASSES ...
He hoped that was the right tone. It was apparently, for No. 402 urged:
GO ON.DETAILS.
By this time he was doubtless plucking nervously at his moustache. He certainly had a little moustache with twirled-up ends. Thedevil take the man; he was the only connecting link; one had to keep up with him. What did officers talk about in the mess?Women and horses. Rubashov rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve and tapped conscientiously:
THIGHS LIKE A WILD MARE.
He stopped, exhausted. With the best will in the world he could not do more. But No. 402 was highly satisfied.
GOOD CHAP!he tapped enthusiastically. He was doubtless laughing boisterously, but one heard nothing; he slapped his thighs and twirled his moustache, but one saw nothing. The abstract obscenity of the dumb wall was embarrassing to Rubashov.
GO ON, urged No. 402.
He couldn't. THAT'S ALL--tapped Rubashov and regretted it immediately. No. 402 must not be offended. But fortunately No. 402 did not let himself be offended. He tapped on obstinately with his monocle:
GO ON--PLEASE, PLEASE. ...
Rubashov was now again practised to the extent of no longer having to count the signs; he transformed them automatically into acoustic perception. It seemed to him that he actually heard the tone of voice in which No. 402 begged for more erotic material. The begging was repeated:
PLEASE--PLEASE. ...
No. 402 was obviously still young-- probably grown up in exile, sprung from an old Army family, sent back into his country with a false passport-- and he was obviously tormenting himself badly. He was doubtless plucking at his little moustache, had stuck his monocle to his eye again and was staring hopelessly at the whitewashed wall.
MORE--PLEASE, PLEASE.
...Hopelessly staring at the dumb, whitewashed wall, staring at the stains caused by the damp, which gradually began to assume the outlines of the woman with the champagne-cup breasts and the thighs of a wild mare.
TELL ME MORE--PLEASE.
Perhaps he was kneeling on the bunk with his hands folded-like the prisoner in No. 407 had folded them to receive his piece of bread.
And now at last Rubashov knew of what experience this gesture had reminded him-the imploring gesture of the meagre, stretched-out hands.Pietà ...

9
Pietà . ...The picture gallery of a town in southern Germany on a Monday afternoon. There was not a soul in the place, save for Rubashov and the young man whom he had come to meet; their conversation took place on a round plush sofa in the middle of an empty room, the walls of which were hung with tons of heavy female flesh by the Flemish masters. It was in the year 1933, during the first months of terror, shortly before Rubashov's arrest. The movement had been defeated, its members were outlawed and hunted and beaten to death. The Party was no longer a political organization; it was nothing but a thousand-armed and thousand-headed mass of bleeding flesh.As a man's hair and nails continue to grow after his death, so movement still occurred in individual cells, muscles and limbs of the dead Party. All over the country existed small groups of people who had survived the catastrophe and continued to conspireunderground. They met in cellars, woods, railway stations, museums and sport clubs. They continuously changed their sleeping quarters, also their names and their habits. They knew each other only by their Christian names and did not ask for each other's addresses. Each gave his life into the other's hands, and neither trusted the other an inch. They printed pamphlets in which they tried to convince themselves and others that they were still alive. They stole at night through narrow suburban streets and wrote on the walls the old slogans, to prove that they were still alive. They climbed at dawn on factory chimneys and hoisted the old flag, to prove that they were still alive. Only a few people ever saw the pamphlets and they threw them away quickly, for they shuddered at the message of the dead; the slogans on the walls were gone by cock's crow and the flags were pulled down from the chimneys; but they always appeared again. For all over the country there were small groups of people who called themselves "dead men on holiday", and who devoted their lives to proving that they still possessed life.
They had no communication with each other; the nerve fibres of the Party were torn and each group stood for itself. But, gradually, they started to put out feelers again. Respectable commercial travellers came from abroad, with false passports and with double-bottomed trunks; they were the Couriers. Usually they were caught, tortured and beheaded; others took their place. The Party remained dead, it could neither move nor breathe, but its hair and nails continued to grow; the leaders abroad sent galvanizing currents through its rigid body, which caused spasmodic jerks in the limbs.
Pietà . ... Rubashov forgot No. 402 and went on doing his six and a half steps up and down; he found himself again on the round plush sofa in the picture gallery, which smelled of dust and floor polish. He had driven straight from the station to the appointed meeting place and had arrived a few minutes too soon. He was fairly sure that he had not been observed. His suitcase, which contained samples of a Dutch firm's latest novelties in dentists' equipment, lay in the cloakroom. He sat on the round plush sofa, looking through his pince-nez at the masses of flabby flesh on the walls, and waited.
The young man, who was known by the name of Richard, and was at this time leader of the Party group in this town, came a few minutes too late. He had never seen Rubashov and Rubashov had never seen him, either. He had already gone through two empty galleries when he saw Rubashov on the round sofa. On Rubashov's knee lay a book: Goethe'sFaust in Reclam's Universal Edition. The young man noticed the book, gave a hurried look round and sat down beside Rubashov. He was rather shy and sat on the edge of the sofa, about two feet away from Rubashov, his cap on his knees. He was a locksmith by trade and wore a black Sunday suit; he knew that a man in overalls would be conspicuous in a museum.
"Well?" he said. "You must please excuse my being late."
"Good," said Rubashov. "Let us first go through your people. Have you got a list?"
The young man called Richard shook his head. "I don't carry lists," he said. "I've got it all in my head--addresses and alt."
"Good," said Rubashov. "But what if they get you?"
"As for that," said Richard, "I have given a list to Anny. Anny is my wife, you know."
He stopped and swallowed and his Adam's apple moved up and down; then for the first time he looked Rubashov full in the face. Rubashov saw that he had inflamed eyes; the slightly prominent eyeballs were covered by a net of red veins; his chin and cheeks were stubbly over the black collar of the Sunday suit. "Anny was arrested last night, you know," he said and looked at Rubashov, and Rubashov read in his eyes the dull, childish hope that he, the Courier of the Central Committee, would work a miracle and help him.
"Really?" said Rubashov and rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve. "So the police have got the whole list."
"No," said Richard, "formy sister-in-law was in the flat when they came to fetch her, you know, and she managed to pass it to her. It is quite safe with my sister-in-law, you know; she is married to a police constable, but she is with us."
"Good," said Rubashov. "Where were you when your wife was arrested?"
"This is how it was," said Richard. "I haven't slept in my flat for three months, you know. I have a pal who is a cinema operator; I can go to him, and when the performance is over I can sleep in his cabin. One gets in straight from the street by the fire escape.And cinema for nothing. ..." He paused and swallowed. "Anny was always given free tickets by my pal, you know, and when it was dark she would look up to the projecting room. She couldn't see me, but sometimes I could see her face quite well when there was a lot of light on the screen. ..."
He stopped.Just opposite him hung a "Last Judgment": curly-headed cherubs with rotund behinds flying up into a thunderstorm, blowing trumpets. To Richard's left hung a pen drawing by a German master; Rubashov could only see a part of it--the rest was hidden by the plush back of the sofa and by Richard's head: the Madonna's thin hands, curved upwards, hollowed to the shape of a bowl, and a bit of empty sky covered with horizontal pen lines. More was not to be seen as, while speaking, Richard's head persisted immovably in the same position on his slightly bowed, reddish neck.
"Really?" said Rubashov. "How old is your wife?"
"She is seventeen," said Richard.
"Really?And how old are you?"
"Nineteen," said Richard.
"Any children?" asked Rubashov and stretched his head out a little, but he could not see more of the drawing.
"The first one is on the way," said Richard.He sat motionlessly, as if cast in lead.
There was an interval and then Rubashov let him recite the list of the Party's members. It consisted of about thirty names. He asked a few questions and wrote down several addresses in his order book for the Dutch firm's dental instruments. He wrote them in the spaces he had left in a long list of local dentists and respectable citizens copied out of the telephone directory. When they had finished, Richard said:
"Now I would like to give you a short report on our work, comrade."
"Good," said Rubashov. "I'm listening."
Richard made his report. He sat slightly bent forward, a couple of feet away from Rubashov, on the narrow plush sofa, his big red hands on the knees of his Sunday suit; he did not change his position once while speaking. He spoke of the flags on the chimney stacks, the inscriptions on the walls and the pamphlets which were left in the factory latrines, stiffly and matter-of-factly as a book-keeper. Opposite him the trumpet-blowing angels flew into the thunderstorm, at the back of his head an invisible Virgin Mary stretched out her thin hands; from all around the walls colossal breasts, thighs and hips stared at them.
Breasts fitting to champagne glasses came into Rubashov's head. He stood still on the third black tile from the cell-window, to hear whether No. 402 was still tapping. There was no sound. Rubashov went to the spy-hole and looked over to No. 407, who had stretched out his hands for the bread. He saw the grey steel door of cell 407 with the small black Judas. Electric light was burning in the corridor as always; it was bleak and silent; one could hardly believe that human beings lived behind those doors.
While the young man called Richard was giving his report, Rubashov did not interrupt him. Of the thirty men and women whom Richard had grouped together after the catastrophe, only seventeen remained. Two, a factory hand and his girl, had thrown themselves out of the window when they came to fetch them. One had deserted--had left the town, vanished. Two were suspected of being spies for the police, but this was not certain. Three had left the Party as a protest against the policy of the Central Committee; two of them had founded a new oppositional group, the third had joined the Moderates. Five had been arrested last night, among them Anny; it was known that at least two of these five were no longer alive. So there remained seventeen, who continued to distribute pamphlets and scribble on walls.
Richard told him all this in minute detail, so that Rubashov should understand all the personal connections and causes which were particularly important; he did not know that the Central Committee had their own man in the group, who had long ago given Rubashov most of the facts. He did not know either that this man was his pal, the cinema operator, in whose cabin he slept; neither that this person had been for a long time on intimate terms with his wife Anny, arrested last night. None of this did Richard know; but Rubashov knew it. The movement lay in ruins, but its Intelligence and Control Department still functioned; it was perhaps the only part of it which did function, and at that time Rubashov stood at the head of it. The bull-necked young man in the Sunday suit did not know that either; he only knew that Anny had been taken away and that one had to go on distributing pamphlets and scribbling on walls; and that Rubashov, who was a comrade from the Central Committee of the Party, was to be trusted like a father; but that one must not show this feeling nor betray any weakness. For he who was soft and sentimental was no good for the task and had to be pushed aside--pushed out of the movement, into solitude and the outer darkness.
Outside in the corridor steps were approaching. Rubashov went to the door, took his pince-nez off and put his eye to the Judas. Two officials with leather revolver-belts were conducting a young peasant along the corridor; behind them came the old warder with the bunch of keys. The peasant had a swollen eye and dry blood on his upper lip; as he passed he wiped his sleeve over his bleeding nose; his face was flat and expressionless. Further down the corridor, outside Rubashov's range, a cell door was unlocked and slammed. Then the officials and the warder came back alone.
Rubashov walked up and down in his cell. He saw himself, sitting on the round plush sofa next to Richard; he heard again the silence which had fallen when the boy had finished his report. Richard did not move; sat with his hands on his knees and waited. He sat as one who had confessed and was waiting for the father-confessor's sentence. For a long while Rubashov said nothing. Then he said:
"Good. Is that all?"
The boy nodded; his Adam's apple moved up and down.
"Several things are not clear in your report," said Rubashov. "You spoke repeatedly of the leaflets and pamphlets which you made yourselves. They are known to us and their content was criticized sharply. There are several phrases which the Party cannot accept."
Richard looked at him frightenedly: he reddened. Rubashov saw the skin over his cheek-bones becoming hot and the net of red veins in his inflamed eyes become denser.
"On the other hand," continued Rubashov, "we have repeatedly sent you our printed material for distribution, amongst which was the special small-size edition of the official Party organ. You received these consignments."
Richard nodded. The heat did not leave his face.
"But you did not distribute our material; it is not even mentioned in your report. Instead, you circulated the material made by yourselves--without the control or approval of the Party."
"B-but we had to," Richard brought out with a great effort. Rubashov looked at him attentively through his pince-nez; he had not noticed before that the boy stammered. "Curious," he thought, "this is the third case in a fortnight. We have a surprising number of defectives in the Party. Either it is because of the circumstances under which we work--or the movement itself promotes a selection of defectives. ..."
"You m-must understand, c-comrade," said Richard in growing distress. "The t-tone of your propaganda material was wrong, b-because--"
"Speak quietly," said Rubashov suddenly in a sharp tone, "and don't turn your head to the door."
A tall young man in the uniform of the black bodyguard of the régime had entered the room with his girl. The girl was a buxom blonde; he held her round her broad hip, her arm lay on his shoulder. They paid no attention to Rubashov and his companion and stopped in front of the trumpeting angels, with their backs to the sofa.
"Go on talking," said Rubashov in a calm, low voice and automatically took his cigarette case out of his pocket. Then he remembered that one may not smoke in museums and put the case back. The boy sat as if paralysed by an electric shock, and stared at the two. "Go on talking," said Rubashov quietly. "Did you stammer as a child? Answer and don't look over there."
"S-sometimes," Richard managed to bring out with a great effort.

The couple moved along the row of pictures. They stopped in front of a nude of a very fat woman, who lay on a satin couch and looked at the spectator. The man murmured something presumably funny, for the girl giggled and glanced fleetingly at the two figures on the sofa. They moved on a bit, to a still-life of dead pheasants and fruit.
"Sh-shouldn't we go?" asked Richard.
"No," said Rubashov. He was afraid that when they stood up the boy in his agitation would behave conspicuously. "They will soon go. We have our backs to the light; they cannot see us clearly. Breathe slowly and deeply several times. It helps."
The girl went on giggling and the pair moved slowly towards the way out. In passing, they both turned their heads towards Rubashov and Richard. They were just about to leave the room, when the girl pointed her finger at the pen drawing on thePietà ; they stopped to look at it. "Is it very di-disturbing when I s-stammer?" asked Richard in a low voice, staring down at the floor.
"One must control oneself," said Rubashov shortly. He could not now let any feeling of intimacy creep into the conversation.
"It will b-be b-better in a minute," said Richard, and his Adam's apple moved convulsively up and down. "Anny always laughed at me about it, youkn- now." As long as the couple remained in the room, Rubashov could not steer the conversation. The back of the man in uniform nailed him down next to Richard. The common danger helped the boy over his shyness; he even slid a bit closer to Rubashov.
"She was fond of me all the s-same," he continued, whispering in another, quieter kind of agitation. "I n-never knew quite how to take her. She did not want to have the child, b-but she could not get rid of it. P-perhaps they won't do anything to her as she is p-pregnant. You c-can see it quite clearly, you know. Do you think that they beat pregnant women, t-too?"
With his chin, he indicated the young man in uniform. In the same instant the young man suddenly turned his head towards Richard. For a second they looked at each other. The young man in uniform said something to the girl in a low voice; she too turned her head. Rubashov again grasped his cigarette case, but this time let it go while still in his pocket. The girl said something and pulled the young man away with her. The pair of them left the gallery slowly, the man rather hesitatingly. One heard the girl giggling again outside and their footsteps receding.
Richard turned his head and followed them with his eyes. As he moved, Rubashov gained a better view of the drawing; he could now see the Virgin's thin arms up to the elbow. They were meagre, little girl's arms, raised weightlessly towards the invisible shaft of the cross.
Rubashov looked at his watch. The boy moved a bit further away from him on the sofa.
"We must come to a conclusion," said Rubashov. "If I understand you rightly, you said that you purposely did not distribute our material because you did not agree with its contents. But neither did we agree with the contents of your leaflets. You will understand,comrade, that certain consequences must come of that."
Richard turned his reddened eyes towards him. Then he lowered his head. "You know yourself that the material you sent was full of nonsense," he said in a flat voice. He had suddenly stopped stammering.
"Of that I know nothing," said Rubashov drily.
"You wrote as if nothing had happened," said Richard in the same tired voice. "They beat the Party to shambles, and you just wrote phrases about our unbroken will to victory--the same kind of lies as the communiqué in the Great War. Whoever we showed it to would just spit. You must know all that yourself." Rubashov looked at the boy, who now sat leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his chin on his red fists. He answered drily:
"For the second time you ascribe to me an opinion which I do not hold. I must ask you to stop doing so."
Richard looked at him unbelievingly out of his inflamed eyes. Rubashov went on.
"The Party is going through a severe trial. Other revolutionary parties have been through even more difficult ones. The decisive factor is our unbroken will. Whoever now goes soft and weak does not belong in our ranks. Whoever spreads an atmosphere of panic plays into our enemy'shands. What his motives are in doing so does not make any difference. By his attitude he becomes a danger to our movement, and will be treated accordingly."
Richard still sat with his chin in his hands, his face turned to Rubashov.
"So I am a danger to the movement," he said. "I play into the enemy's hands. Probably I am paid for doing so.And Anny, too. ..."
"In your pamphlets," continued Rubashov in the same dry tone of voice, "of which you admit to be the author, there frequently appear phrases such as this: that we have suffered a defeat, that a catastrophe has befallen the Party, and that we must start afresh and change our policy fundamentally. That is defeatism. It is demoralizing and it lames the Party's fighting spirit."
"I only know," said Richard, "that one must tell people the truth, as they know it already, in any case. It is ridiculous to pretend to them."
"The last congress of the Party," Rubashov went on, "stated in a resolution that the Party has not suffered a defeat and has merely carried out a strategic retreat; and that there is no reason whatever for changing its previous policy."
"But that's rubbish," said Richard.
"If you go on in this style," said Rubashov, "I am afraid we will have to break off the conversation."
Richard was silent for a while. The room began to darken, the contours of the angels and women on the walls became still softer and more nebulous.
"I am sorry," said Richard. "I mean: the Party leadership is mistaken. You talk of a ‘strategic retreat' while half of our people are killed, and those which are left are so pleased to be still alive that they go over to the other side in shoals. These hair-splitting resolutions which you people outside fabricate are not understood here. ..."

Richard's features began to become hazy in the growing dusk. He paused,then added:
"I suppose Anny also made a ‘strategic retreat' last night. Please, you must understand. Here we are all living in the jungle. ..."
Rubashov waited to see whether he still had anything to say, but Richard said nothing. Dusk was falling rapidly now. Rubashov took his pince-nez off- and rubbed it on his sleeve.
"The Party can never be mistaken," said Rubashov. "You and I can make a mistake. Not the Party. The Party, comrade, is more than you and I and a thousand others like you and I. The Party is the embodiment of the revolutionary idea in history. History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unerring, she flows towards her goal. At every bend in her course she leaves the mud which she carries and the corpses of the drowned. History knows her way. She makes no mistakes. He who has not absolute faith in History does not belong in the Party's ranks."
Richard said nothing; head on his fists, he kept his immovable face turned to Rubashov. As he remained silent, Rubashov went on:
"You have prevented the distribution of our material; you have suppressed the Party's voice. You have distributed pamphlets in which every word was harmful and false. You wrote: The remains of the revolutionary movement must be gathered together and all powers hostile to tyranny must unite; we must stop our old internal struggles and start the common fight afresh.' That is wrong. The Party must not join the Moderates. It is they who in all good faith have countless times betrayed the movement, and they will do it again next time, and the time after next. He who compromises with them buries the revolution. You wrote: ‘When the house is on fire, all must help to quench it; if we go on quarrelling about doctrines,we will all be burnt to ashes.' That is wrong. We fight against the fire with water; the others do with oil. Therefore we must first decide which is the right method, water or oil, before uniting the fire-brigades. One cannot conduct politics that way. It is impossible to form a policy with passion and despair. The Party's course is sharply defined, like a narrow path in the mountains. The slightest false step, right or left, takes one down the precipice. The air is thin; he who becomes dizzy is lost."
Dusk had now progressed so far that Rubashov could no longer see the hands on the drawing. A bell rang twice, shrill and penetratingly; in a quarter of an hour the museum would be closed. Rubashov looked at his watch; he still had the decisive word to say, then it would be over. Richard sat motionless next to him, elbows on knees.
"Yes, to that I have no answer," he saidfinally, and again his voice was flat and very tired. "What you say is doubtless true. And what you said about that mountain path is very fine. But all I know is that we are beaten. Those who are still left desert us.Perhaps, because it is too cold up on our mountain path. The others--they have music and bright banners and they all sit round a nice warm fire. Perhaps that is why they have won. And why we are breaking our necks."
Rubashov listened in silence. He wanted to hear whether the young man had any more to say, before he himself pronounced the decisive sentence. Whatever Richard said, it could not now change that sentence in any way; but yet he waited.
Richard's heavy form was more and more obscured by the dusk. He had moved still further away on the round sofa; he sat with bent shoulders and his face nearly buried in his hands. Rubashov sat straight up on the sofa and waited. He felt a slight drawing pain in his upper jaw; probably the defective eye-tooth. After a while he heard Richard's voice:
"What will happen to me now?"
Rubashov felt for the aching tooth with his tongue. He felt the need to touch it with his finger before pronouncing the decisive word, but forbade himself. He said quietly:
"I have to inform you, in accordance with the Central Committee's decision, that you are no longer a member of the Party, Richard."
Richard did not stir. Again Rubashov waited for a while, before standing up. Richard remained sitting. He merely lifted his head, looked up at him and asked:
"Is that what you came here for?"
"Chiefly," said Rubashov. He wanted to go, but still stood there in front of Richard and waited
"What will now become of me?" asked Richard. Rubashov said nothing. After a while, Richard said:
"Now I suppose I cannot live at my friend's cabin either?"
After a short hesitation Rubashov said:
"Better not."
He was at once annoyed with himself for having said it, and he was not certain whether Richard had understood the meaning of the phrase. He looked down on the seated figure:
"It will be better for us to leave the building separately. Good-bye."
Richard straightened himself, but remained sitting. In the twilight Rubashov could only guess the expression of the inflamed, slightly prominent eyes; yet it was just this blurred image of the clumsy, seated figure which stamped itself in his memory for ever.
He left the room and crossed the next one, which was equally empty and dark. His steps creaked on the parquet floor. Only when he had reached the way out did he remember that he had forgotten to look at the picture of the Pietà ; now he would only know the detail of the folded hands and part of the thin arms, up to the elbow.
On the steps which led down from the entrance he stopped. His tooth was hurting him a bit more; it was cold outside. He wrapped the faded grey woollen scarf more tightly round his neck. The street lamps were already lit in the big quiet square in front of the gallery; at this hour there were few people about; a narrow tram ringing its bell clanged up the elm-bordered avenue. He wondered whether he would find a taxi here.
On the bottom step Richard caught him up, panting breathlessly. Rubashov went straight on, neither hastening nor slacking his pace and without turning his head. Richard was half a head bigger than he and much broader, but he held his shoulders hunched, making himself small beside Rubashov and shortening his steps. After a few paces he said:
"Was that meant to be a warning, when I asked you if I could go on living with my friend and you said ‘Better not'?"
Rubashov saw a taxi with bright lights coming up the avenue. He stopped on the curb and waited for it to come closer. Richard was standing beside him. "I have no more to say to you, Richard," Rubashov said, and hailed the taxi.
"Comrade--b-but you couldn't d-denounce me, comrade ..." said Richard. The taxi slowed down, it was no more than twenty paces from them. Richard stood hunched in front of Rubashov; he had caught the sleeve of Rubashov's overcoat and was talking straight down into his face; Rubashov felt his breath and a slight dampness sprayed on to his forehead.
"I am not an enemy of the Party," said Richard. "You c-can't throw me to the wolves, c-comrade ..."
The taxi stopped at the curb; the driver must certainly have heard the last word Rubashov calculated rapidly that it was no use sending Richard away; there was a policeman posted a hundred yards further up. The driver, a little old man in a leather jacket, looked at them expressionlessly.
"To the station," said Rubashov and got in. The taxi driver reached back with his right arm and slammed the door behind him. Richard stood on the edge of the pavement, cap in hand; his Adam's apple moved rapidly up and down. The taxi started; it drove off towards the policeman; it passed the policeman. Rubashov preferred not to look back, but he knew that Richard was still standing on the edge of the pavement, staring at the taxi's red rear-light.
For a few minutes, they drove through busy streets; the taxi driver turned his head round several times, as if he wanted to make sure that his passenger was still inside. Rubashov knew the town too little to make out whether they were really going to the station. The streets became quieter; at the end of an avenue appeared a massive building with a large illuminated clock, they stopped at the station.
Rubashov got out; the taxis in this town had no meters yet. "How much is it?" he asked.
"Nothing," said the driver. His face was old and creased; he pulled a dirty red rag out of the pocket of his leather coat and blew his nose with ceremony.
Rubashov looked at him attentively through his pince-nez. He was certain he had not seen that face before. The driver put his handkerchief away. "For people like yourself, sir, it's always free," he said and busied himself with the handbrake. Suddenly he held his hand out. It was an old man's hand with thickened veins and black nails. "Good luck, sir," he said, smiling rather sheepishly at Rubashov. "If your young friend ever wants anything--my stand is in front of the museum. You can send him my number, sir."
Rubashov saw to his right a porter leaning against a post and looking at them. He did not take the driver's outstretched hand; he put a coin into it and went into the station, without a word.
He had to wait an hour for the departure of the train. He drank bad coffee in the buffet; his tooth tormented him. In the train he fell into a doze and dreamed he had to run in front of the engine. Richard and the taxi-driver were standing in it; they wanted to run him over because he had cheated them of the fare. The wheels came rattling closer and closer and his feet refused to move. He woke up with nausea and felt the cold perspiration on his forehead; the other people in the compartment looked at him in slight astonishment. Outside was night; the train was rushing through a dark enemy country, the affair with Richard had to be concluded, his tooth was aching. A week later he was arrested.[/size][/size]

10

Rubashov leant his forehead against the window and looked down into the yard He was tired in the legs and dizzy in the head from walking up and down. He looked at his watch; a quarter to twelve; he had been walking to and fro in his cell for nearly four hours on end, since first thePietà had occurred to him. It did not surprise him; he was well enough acquainted with the day-dreams of imprisonment, with the intoxication which emanates from the whitewashed walls. He remembered a younger comrade, by profession a hairdresser's assistant, telling him how, in his second and worst year of solitary confinement, he had dreamed for seven hours on end with his eyes open; in doing so he had walked twenty-eight kilometres, in a cell five paces long, and had blistered his feet without noticing it.
This time, however, it had come rather quickly; already, the first day the voice had befallen him, whereas during his previous experiences it had started only after several weeks. Another strange thing was that he had thought of the past; chronic prison day-dreamers dreamed nearly always of the future--and of the past only as it might have been, never as it actually had been. Rubashov wondered what other surprises his mental apparatus held in store for him. He knew from experience that confrontation with death always altered the mechanism of thought and caused the most surprising reactions--like the movements of a compass brought close to the magnetic pole.
The sky was still heavy with an imminent fall of snow; in the courtyard two men were doing their daily walk on the shovelled path. One of the two repeatedly looked up at Rubashov's window--apparently the news of his arrest had already spread. He was an emaciated man with a yellow skin and a hare-lip, wearing a thin waterproof which he clutched round his shoulders as if freezing. The other man was older and had wrapped a blanket roundhimself . They did not speak to each other during their round, and after ten minutes they were fetched back into the building by an official in uniform with a rubber truncheon and a revolver. The door in which the official waited for them lay exactly opposite Rubashov's window; before it closed behind the man with the hare-lip, he once more looked up towards Rubashov. He certainly could not see Rubashov, whose window must have appeared quite dark from the courtyard; yet his eyes lingered on the window searchingly. I see you and do not know you; you cannot see me and yet obviously you know me, thought Rubashov. He sat down on the bed and tapped to No. 402:
WHO ARE THEY?
He thought that No. 402 was probably offended and would not answer. But the officer did not seem to bear grudges; he answered immediately:
POLITICAL.
Rubashov was surprised; he had held the thin man with the here-lip for a criminal.
OF YOUR SORT?heasked.
NO--OF YOURS, tapped No. 402, in all probability grinning with a certain satisfaction. The next sentence was louder-tapped with the monocle, perhaps.
HARE-LIP, MY NEIGHBOUR, NO.400, WAS TORTURED YESTERDAY.
Rubashov remained silent a minute and rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve, although he was only using it to tap with. He first wanted to ask "WHY?" but tapped instead:
HOW?
402 tapped back drily:
STEAMBATH.
Rubashov had been beaten up repeatedly during his last imprisonment, but of this method he only knew by hearsay. He had learned that everyknown physical pain was bearable; if one knew beforehand exactly what was going to happen to one, one stood it as a surgical operation--for instance, the extraction of a tooth. Really bad was only the unknown, which gave one no chance to foresee one's reactions and no scale to calculate one's capacity of resistance. And the worst was the fear that one would then do or say something which could not be recalled.
WHY?asked Rubashov.
POLITICAL DIVERGENCIES, tapped No. 402 ironically.
Rubashov put his pince-nez on again and felt in his pocket for his cigarette case. He had only two cigarettes left. Then he tapped:
AND HOW ARE THINGS WITH YOU?
THANKS,VERY WELL ... tapped No. 402 and dropped the conversation.
Rubashov shrugged his shoulders; he lit his last cigarette but one and resumed his walking up and down. Strangely enough, what was in store for him made him nearlyglad. He felt his stale melancholia leave him, his head become clearer,his nerves tauten. He washed face, arms and chest in cold water over the wash-basin, rinsed his mouth and dried himself with his handkerchief. He whistled a few bars and smiled--he was always hopelessly out of tune, and only a few days ago somebody had said to him: "If No. 1 were musical, he would long ago have found a pretext to have you shot."
"He will anyhow," he had answered, without seriously believing it.
He lit his last cigarette and with a clear head began to work out the line to take when he would be brought up for cross-examination. He was filled by the same quiet and serene self-confidence as he had felt as a student before a particularly difficult examination. He called to memory every particular he knew about the subject "steambath." He imagined the situation in detail and tried to analyse the physical sensations to be expected, in order to rid them of their uncanniness. The important thing was not to let oneself be caught unprepared. He now knew for certain that they would not succeed in doing so, any more than had the others over there; he knew he would not say anything he did not want to say. He only wished they would start soon.
His dream came to his mind: Richard and the old taxi-driver pursuing him, because they felt themselves cheated and betrayed by him.
I will pay my fare, he thought with an awkward smile.
His last cigarette was nearly at an end; it was burning his finger-tips; he let it drop. He was about to stamp it out, but thought better of it; he bent down, picked it up and stubbed out the glowing stump slowly on the back of his hand, between the blue snaky veins. He drew out this procedure for exactly half a minute, checking it by the second hand of his watch. He was pleased with himself: his hand had not twitched once during the thirty seconds. Then he continued his walk.
The eye which had been observing him for several minutes through the spy-hole withdrew.


11

The lunch procession went past in the corridor; Rubashov's cell was again left out. He wanted to spare himself the humiliation of looking through the spy-hole, so he did not discover what there was for lunch; but the smell of it filled his cell, and it smelled good.
He felt a strong desire for a cigarette. He would have to procure himself cigarettes somehow, in order to be able to concentrate; they were more important than food. He waited for half an hour after the doling out of food,then he began to hammer on the door. It took another quarter of an hour before the old warder shuffled up. "What do you want?" he asked, in his usual surly tone.
"Cigarettes to be fetched for me from the canteen," said Rubashov.
"Have you got prison vouchers?"
"My money was taken from me on my arrival," said Rubashov.
"Then you must wait until it has been changed for vouchers."
"How long will that take in this model establishment of yours?" asked Rubashov.
"You can write a letter of complaint," said the old man.
"You know quite well that I have neither paper nor pencil," said Rubashov.
"To buy writing materials you have to have vouchers," said the warder.
Rubashov could feel his temper rising, the familiar pressure in the chest and the choking feeling in the throat; but he controlled it. The old man saw Rubashov's pupils glitter sharply through his pince-nez; it reminded him of the colour prints of Rubashov in uniform, which in the olddays one used to see everywhere; he smiled with senile spite and stepped back a pace.
"You little heap of dung," said Rubashov slowly, turned his back on him and went back to his window.
"I will report that you used insulting language," said the voice of the old man at his back; then the door slammed.
Rubashov rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve and waited until he breathed more calmly. He had to have cigarettes, else he would not be able to hold out. He made himself wait ten minutes. Then he tapped through to No. 402:
HAVE YOU ANY TOBACCO?
He had to wait a bit for the answer. Then it came, clearly and well spaced:
NOT FOR YOU.
Rubashov went slowly back to the window. He saw the young officer with the small moustache, the monocle stuck in, staring with a stupid grin at the wall which separated them; the eye behind the lens was glassy, the reddish eyelid turned up. What went on in his head? Probably he was thinking: I gave it to you all right. Probably also: Canaille, how many of my people have you had shot? Rubashov looked at the whitewashed wall; he felt that the other was standing behind it with his face turned towards him; he thought he heard his panting breath. Yes, how many of yours have I had shot, I wonder? He really could not remember; it was long, long ago, during the Civil War, there must have been something' between seventy and a hundred. What of it? That was all right; it lay on a different plane to a case like Richard's, and he would do it again to-day. Even if he knew beforehand that the revolution would in the end put No. 1 in the saddle?Even then.
With you, thought Rubashov and looked at the whitewashed wall behind which the other stood--in the meantime he had probably lit a cigarette and was blowing the smoke against the wall--with you I have no accounts to settle. To you I owe no fare. Between you and us there is no common currency and no common language. ... Well, what do you want now?
For No. 402 had started to tap again. Rubashov went back to the wall. ... SENDING YOU TOBACCO, he heard. Then, more faintly, he heard No. 402 hammering on his door in order to attract the warder's attention.
Rubashov held his breath; after a few minutes he heard the old man's shuffling footsteps approaching. The warder did not unlock No. 402's door, but asked through the spy-hole:
"What do you want?"
Rubashov could not hear the answer, although he would have liked to hear No. 402's voice. Then the old man said loudly, so that Rubashov should hear it:
"It is not allowed; against the regulations."
Again Rubashov could not hear the reply. Then the warder said:
"I will report you for using insulting language." His steps trailed over the tiles and were lost in the corridor.
For a time there was silence. Then No. 402 tapped:
A BAD LOOK-OUT FOR YOU.
Rubashov gave no answer. He walked up and down, feeling the thirst for tobacco itching in the dry membranes of his throat. He thought of No. 402. "Yet I would do it again," he said to himself. "It was necessary and right. But do I perhaps owe you the fare all the same? Must one also pay for deeds which were right and necessary?"
The dryness in his throat increased. He felt a pressure in his forehead; he went restlessly back and forth, and while he thought his lips began to move.
Must one also pay for righteous acts? Was there another measure besides that of reason?
Did the righteous man perhaps carry the heaviest debt when weighed by this other measure? Was his debt, perhaps, counted double--for the others knew not what they did? ...
Rubashov stood still on the third black tile from the window.
What was this?A breath of religious madness? He became conscious that he had for several minutes been talking half aloud to himself. And even as he was watching himself, his lips, independently of his will, moved and said:
"I shall pay."
For the first time since his arrest Rubashov was scared. He felt for his cigarettes. But he had none.
Then again he heard the delicate tappings on the wall over the bedstead. No. 402 had a message for him:
HARE-LIP SENDS YOU GREETINGS.
He saw in his mind's eye the yellow, upturned face of the man: the message made him feel uncomfortable. He tapped:
WHAT IS HIS NAME?
No. 402 answered:
HE WON'T SAY. BUT HE SENDS YOU GREETINGS.

12

During the afternoon Rubashov felt even worse. He was seized by periodic fits of shivering. His tooth also had started to ache again--the right eye-tooth which was connected to the eye-nerve orbitalis. He had had nothing to eat since his arrest, yet did not feel hungry. He tried to collect his wits, but the cold shudders which ran over him and itching and tickling in his throat prevented him. His thoughts circled alternatively round two poles: the desperate thirst for a cigarette and the sentence: I shall pay.
Memories overwhelmed him; they hummed and buzzed subduedly in his ears. Faces and voices came up and vanished; wherever he tried to hold them they hurt him; his whole past was sore and festered at every touch. His past was the movement, the Party; present and future, too, belonged to the Party, were inseparably bound up with its fate; but his past was identical with it. And it was this past that was suddenly put in question. The Party's warm, breathing body appeared to him to be covered with sores--festering sores, bleeding stigmata. When and where in history had there ever been such defective saints? Whenever had a good cause been worse represented? If the Party embodied the will of history, then history itself was defective.
Rubashov gazed at the damp patches on the walls of his cell. He tore the blanket off the bunk and wrapped it round his shoulders; he quickened his pace and marched to and fro with short, quick steps, making sudden turns at door and window; but shivers continued to run down his back. The buzzing in his ears went on, mixed with vague, soft voices; he could not make out whether they came from the corridor or whether he was suffering from hallucinations. It is the orbitalis, he said to himself; it comes from the broken-off root of the eye-tooth. I will tell the doctor about it tomorrow, but in the meantime there is still a lot to do. The cause of the Party's defectiveness must be found. All our principles were right, but our results were wrong. This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but wherever we applied the healing knife a new sore appeared. Our will was hard andpure, we should have been loved by the people. But they hate us. Why are we so odious and detested?
We brought you truth, and in our mouth it sounded a lie. We brought you freedom, and it looks in our hands like a whip. We brought you the living life, and where our voice is heard the trees wither and there is a rustling of dry leaves. We brought you the promise of the future, but our tongue stammered and barked. ...
He shivered. A picture appeared in his mind's eye, a big photograph in a wooden frame: the delegates to the first congress of the Party. They sat at a long wooden table, some with their elbows propped on it, others with their hands on their knees; bearded and earnest, they gazed into the photographer's lens. Above each head was a small circle, enclosing a number corresponding to a name printed underneath. All were solemn, only the old man who was presiding had a sly and amused look in his slit Tartar eyes. Rubashov sat second to his right, with his pince-nez on his nose. No. 1 sat somewhere at the lower end of the table, four square and heavy. They looked like the meeting of a provincial town council, and were preparing the greatest revolution in human history. They were at that time a handful of men of an entirely new species: militant philosophers. They were as familiar with the prisons in the towns of Europe as commercial travellers with the hotels..They dreamed of power with the object of abolishing power; of ruling over the people to wean them from the habit of being ruled. All their thoughts became deeds and all their dreams were fulfilled. Where were they? Their brains, which had changed the course of the world, had each received a charge of lead.Some in the forehead, some in the back of the neck. Only two or three of them were left over, scattered throughout the world, worn out.And himself; and No. 1.
He was frozen, and he longed for a cigarette. He saw himself again in the old Belgian port, escorted by merry Little Loewy, who was slightly hunchbacked and smoked a sailor's pipe. He smelled again the smell of the harbour, a mixture of rotting seaweed and petrol; he heard the musical clock on the tower of the old guildhall, and saw the narrow streets with overhanging bays, from the lattices of which the harbour prostitutes hung their washing during the day. It was two years after the affair with Richard. They had not succeeded in proving anything againsthimself . He had kept silent when they beat him up, kept silent when they knocked the teeth out of his head, injured his hearing and broke his glasses. He had kept silent, and had gone on denying everything and lying coldly and circumspectly. He had marched up and down his cell, and crawled over the flagstones of the dark punishment cell, he had been afraid and he had gone on working at his defence; and when cold water woke him from unconsciousness, he had groped for a cigarette and gone on lying. In those days he felt no surprise at the hatred of those who tortured him, and did not wonder why he was so detestable to them. The whole legal machinery of the dictatorship ground its teeth, but they could prove nothing against him. After his release he was taken by aeroplane to his country--to the home of the Revolution. There were receptions and jubilant mass-meetings and military
parades. Even No. 1 appeared repeatedly in public with him.
He had not been in his native country for years and found that much was changed. Half the bearded men of the photograph no longer existed. Their names might not be mentioned, their memory only invoked with curses--except for the old man with the slanting Tartar eyes, the leader of yore, who had died in time. He was revered as God-the-Father, and No. 1 as the Son; but it was whispered everywhere that he had forged the old man's will in order to come into the heritage. Those of the bearded men in the old photograph who were left had become unrecognizable. They were, clean-shaven, worn out and disillusioned, full of cynical melancholy. From time to time No. 1 reached out for a new victim amongst them. Then they all beat their breasts and repented in chorus of their sins. After a fortnight, when he was still walking on crutches, Rubashov had asked for a new mission abroad. "You seem to be in rather a hurry," said No. 1, looking at him from behind clouds of smoke. After twenty years in the leadership of the Party they were still on formal terms with each other. Above No. 1's head hung the portrait of the Old Man; next to it the photograph with the numbered heads had hung, but it was now gone. The colloquy wasshort, it had lasted only a few minutes, but on leaving No. 1 had shaken his hand with peculiar emphasis. Rubashov had afterwards cogitated a long time over the meaning of this handshake; and over the look of strangely knowing irony which No. 1 had given him from behind his smoke-clouds. Then Rubashov had hobbled out of the room on his crutches; No. 1 did not accompany him to the door. The next day he had left for Belgium.
On the boat he recovered slightly and thought over his task. Little Loewy with the sailor's pipe came to meet him on his arrival. He was the local leader of the dock-workers' section of the Party; Rubashov liked him at once. He showed Rubashov through the docks and the twisting harbour streets as proudly as if he had made it all himself. In every pub he had acquaintances, dock workers, sailors and prostitutes; he was everywhere offered drinks and returned salutations by raising his pipe to his ear. Even the traffic policeman on the marketplace winked at him as they passed, and the sailor comrades from foreign ships, who could not make themselves understood, slapped him tenderly on the deformed shoulder. Rubashov saw all this with a mild surprise. No, Little Loewy was not odious and detestable. The dock workers' section in this town was one of the best organized sections of the Party in the world.
In the evening Rubashov, Little Loewy and a couple of others sat in one of the harbour pubs. A certain Paul was amongst them, the section's organization Secretary. He was an ex-wrestler, bald-headed, pockmarked, with big sticking-out ears. He wore a sailor's black sweater under hiscoat, and a black bowler on his head. He had the gift of waggling his ears, thereby lifting his bowler and letting it drop again. With him was a certain Bill, an ex-sailor who had written a novel about the sailor's life, had been famous for a year and then quickly forgotten again; now he wrote articles for Party newspapers. The others were dock workers, heavy men and steadfast drinkers. New people kept coming in, sat down or stood at the table, paid a round of drinks and lounged out again. The fat pub-keeper sat down to their table whenever he had a free moment. He could play the mouth-organ. Quite a lot was drunk.
Rubashov had been introduced by Little Loewy as a "comrade from Over There" without further commentary. Little Loewy was the only one who knew his identity. As the people at the table saw that Rubashov either was not in a communicative mood, or had reasons not to be, they did not ask him many questions; and those which they did ask referred to the material conditions of life "over there", the wages, the land problem, the development of industry. Everything they said revealed a surprising knowledge of technical detail, coupled with an equally surprising ignorance of the general situation and political atmosphere "over there". They inquired about the development of production in the light metal industry, like children asking the exact size of the grapes of Canaan. An old dock worker, who had stood at the bar for a time without ordering anything until Little Loewy called him over for a drink, said to Rubashov, after having shaken hands with him' "You look very like old Rubashov." "That I have often been told," said Rubashov. "Old Rubashov--there's a man for you," said the old man, emptying his glass. It was not a month ago that Rubashov had been set free, and not six weeks since he knew that he would remain alive. The fat pub-keeper played his mouth-organ. Rubashov lit a cigarette and ordered drinks all round. They drank to his health and to the health of the people "over there", and the Secretary Paul moved his bowler hat up and down with his ears.
Later on Rubashov and Little Loewy remained for some time together in a café. The owner of the café had let down the blinds and piled the chairs on the tables, and was asleep against the counter, while Little Loewy told Rubashov the story of his life. Rubashov had not asked him for it, and at once foresaw complications for next day: he could not help it that all comrades felt an urge to tell him their life history. He had really meant to go, but he felt suddenly very tired--he had, after all, overrated his strength; so he stayed on and listened.
It turned out that Little Loewy was not a native of the country, although he spoke the language like one and knew everybody in the place. Actually he was born in a South German town, had learnt the carpenter's trade, and had played the guitar and given lectures on Darwinism on the revolutionary youth club's Sunday excursions. During the disturbed months before the Dictatorship came to power, when the Party was in urgent need of weapons, a daring trick was played in that particular town: one Sunday afternoon, fifty rifles, twenty revolvers and two light machine guns with munitions were carried away in a furniture-van from the police station in the busiest quarter of the city. The people in the van had shown some sort of written order, covered with official stamps, and were accompanied by two apparent policemen in real uniforms. The weapons were found later in another town during a search in the garage of a Party member. The affair was never fully cleared up, and the day after ithappened Little Loewy vanished from the town. The Party had promised him a passport and identity papers, but the arrangement broke down. That is to say, the messenger from the upper Party spheres who was to bring him passport and money for thejourney, did not appear at the pre-arranged meeting-place.
"It's always like that with us," added Little Loewy philosophically. Rubashov kept quiet.
In spite of that, Little Loewy managed to get away and eventually to cross the frontier. As there was a warrant of arrest out for him, and as his photograph with the deformed shoulder was posted up in every police station, it took him several months of wandering across country. When he had started off to meet the comrade from the "upper spheres" he had just enough money in his pocket for three days. "I had always thought before that it was only in books that people chewed the bark of trees," he remarked. "Young plane trees taste best." The memory impelled him to get up and fetch a couple of sausages from the counter. Rubashov remembered prison soup and hunger strikes, and ate with him.
At last Little Loewy crossed over the French frontier. As he had no passport, he was arrested after a few days, told to betake himself to another country and released. "One might just as well have told me to climb to the moon," he observed. He turned to the Party for help; but in this county the Party did not know him and told him they would first have to make inquiries in his native country. He wandered on, after a few days he was arrested again and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. He served his sentence, and gave his cell companion, a tramp, a course of lectures about the resolutions of the last Party Congress. In return the latter let him into the secret of making a living by catching cats and selling their skins. When the three months were over, he was taken by night to a wood on the Belgian frontier. The gendarmes gave him bread, cheese and a packet of French cigarettes. "Go straight on," they said. "In half an hour you will be in Belgium. If we ever catch you over here again, we'll knock your head off."
For several weeks Little Loewy drifted about in Belgium. He again turned to the Party for help, but received the same answer as in France. As he had had enough of plane trees, he tried the cat trade. It was fairly easy to catch cats, and one obtained for a skin, if it were young and not mangy, the equivalent of half a loaf of bread and a packet of pipe tobacco. Between the capture and the selling, however, lay a rather unpleasant operation. It was quickest if one grasped the cat's ears in one hand, and its tail in the other, and broke its back over one's knee. The first few times one was seized by nausea: later on one got used to it. Unfortunately, Little Loewy was arrested again after a few weeks, for in Belgium, too, one was supposed to have identity papers.Followed in due course expulsion, release, second arrest, imprisonment. Then one night two Belgian gendarmes took him to a wood on the French frontier. They gave him bread, cheese and a packet of Belgian cigarettes. "Go straight on," they said. "In half an hour you will be in France. If we catch you over here again, well knock your head off."

In the course of the next year, Little Loewy was smuggled backwards and forwards over the frontier three times, by complicity of the French authorities or, as the case might be, the Belgian. He gathered that this game had been played for years with several hundred of his kind. He applied again and again to the Party, for his chief anxiety was that he should lose contact with the movement. "We received no notification of your arrival from your organisation," the Party told him. "We must wait for the answer to our inquiries. If you are a Party member, keep Party discipline." Meanwhile Little Loewy continued his cat trade and lethimself be shoved to and fro across the frontier. Also the dictatorship broke out in his own country. A further year passed and Little Loewy, slightly the worse for his travels, began to spit blood and dream of cats. He suffered from the delusion that everything smelled of cats, his food, his pipe and even the kindly old prostitutes who sometimes gave him shelter. "We have still received no answer to our inquiries," said the Party. After another year it turned out that all those comrades who could have given the required information about Little Loewy's part were either murdered, locked-up or had disappeared. "We are afraid we cannot do anything for you," said the Party. "You should not have come without an official notification. Perhaps you left even without the Party's permission. How can we know? A lot of spies andprovocateurs try to creep into our ranks. The Party must be on its guard."
"What are you telling me this for?" asked Rubashov. He wished he had left before.
Little Loewy fetched himself beer from the tap, and saluted with his pipe. "Because it is instructive," he said."Because it is a typical example. I could tell you of hundreds of others. For years the best of us have been crushed in that way. The Party is becoming more and more fossilized. The Party has gout and varicose veins in every limb. One cannot make a revolution like that."
I could tell you more about it, thought Rubashov, but said nothing.
However, Little Loewy's story came to an unexpectedly happy end. While serving one of his countless sentences of imprisonment, he was given ex-wrestler Paul as cell companion. Paul was at that time a dock worker; he was in jail for having, during a strike riot, remembered his professional past and applied the grip known as a double Nelson to a policeman. This grip consisted in passing one's arms through the opponent's armpits from behind, locking one's hands behind his neck, and pressing his head down until the neck vertebra began to crack. In the ring this had always brought him considerable applause, but he had learned to his regret that in the class struggle the double Nelson was not done. Little Loewy and ex wrestler Paul became friends. It turned out that Paul was the Administrative Secretary of the Dockers' Section of the Party; when they came out, he procured papers and work for Loewy and obtained his reintegration in the Party. So Little Loewy could again lecture to the dockers on Darwinism and on the latest Party Congress as though nothing had happened. He was happy and forgot the cats and his anger against the Party bureaucrats. After half a year, he became Political Secretary of the local section. All's well that ends well.
And Rubashov wished with his whole heart, old and tired as he felt, that it should end well. But he knew for what task he had been sent here, and there was only one revolutionary virtue which he had not learned, the virtue of self-deception. He looked quietly at Little Loewy through his glasses. And while Little Loewy, who did not understand the meaning of this look, became slightly embarrassed and saluted
smilingly with his pipe, Rubashov was thinking of the cats. He noticed with horror that his nerves were going wrong and that he had perhaps drunk too much, for he could not get rid of the obsession that he must take Little Loewy by his ears and legs and break him over his knee, deformed shoulder and all. He was feeling ill and stood up to go. Little Loewy saw him home; he gathered that Rubashov was in a sudden fit of depression, and was respectfully silent. A week later Little Loewy hanged himself.
Between that evening and Little Loewy's death lay several undramatic meetings of the Party cell. The facts were simple.
Two years ago the Party had called up the workers of the world to fight the newly established dictatorship in the heart of Europe by means of a political and economic boycott. No goods coming from the enemy's country should bebought, no consignments for its enormous armament industry should be allowed to pass. The sections of the Party executed these orders with enthusiasm. The dock workers in the small port refused to load or unload cargoes coming from that country or destined for it. Other trade unions joined them. The strike was hard to carry through; conflicts with the police resulted in wounded and dead. The final result of the struggle was still uncertain when a little fleet of five curious, old-fashioned black cargo boats sailed into the port. Each of them had the name of a great leader of the Revolution painted on its stern, in the strange alphabet used "over there", and from their bows waved the flag of the Revolution. The striking workers greeted them with enthusiasm. They at once began to unload the cargo. After several hours it came to light that the cargo consisted of certain rare minerals and was destined for the war industry of the boycotted country.
The dockers' section of the Party immediately called a committee meeting, where people came to blows. The dispute spread through the movement all over the country. The reactionary Press exploited the event with derision. The police ceased their attempts to break the strike, proclaimed their neutrality and let the harbour workers decide for themselves whether they would unload the cargo of the curious black fleet or not. The Party leadership called the strike off and gave orders to unload the cargo. They gave reasonable explanations and cunning arguments for the behaviour of the Country of the Revolution, but few were convinced. The section split; the majority of the old members left. For months the Party led the shadow of an existence; but gradually, as the industrial distress of the country grew, it regained its popularity and strength.
Two years had passed. Another hungry dictatorship in the south of Europe began a war of plunder and conquest in Africa. Again the Party called for a boycott. They received an even more enthusiastic response than on the previous occasion. For this time the governments themselves in nearly every country in the world had decided to cut off the aggressor's supply of raw materials.
Without raw materials and particularly without petrol, the aggressor would be lost. This was the state of affairs, when again the curious little black fleet set out on her way. The biggest of the ships bore the name of a man who had raised his voice against war and had been slain; at their mastheads waved the flag of the Revolution and in their holds they carried the petrol for the aggressor. They were only a day's journey away from this port, and Little Loewy and his friends knew as yet nothing of their approach. It was Rubashov's task to prepare them for it.
On the first day he had said nothing--only felt his ground. On the morning of the second day the discussion began in the Party meeting-room.
The room was big, bare,untidy and furnished with that lack of care which made the Party's offices in every town in the world look exactly alike. It was partly a result of poverty, but chiefly of an ascetic and
gloomy tradition. The walls were covered with old election posters, political slogans and typed notices.In one corner stood a dusty old duplicator. In another lay a heap of old clothes destined for the families of strikers; next to them piles of yellowing leaflets and brochures. The long table consisted of two parallel planks laid over a couple of trestles. The windows were smeared with paint as in an unfinished building. Over the table a naked electric bulb hung on a cord from the ceiling, and next to it a sticky paper fly-catcher. Round the table sat hunchbacked Little Loewy, ex wrestler Paul, the writer Bill and three others.
Rubashov spoke for some time. The surroundings were familiar to him; their traditional ugliness made him feel at home. In these surroundings he was again fully convinced of the necessity and utility of his mission and could not understand why, in the noisy pub the night before, he had had that feeling of uneasiness. He explained objectively and not without warmth the real state of things, without as yet mentioning the practical object for his coming. The world boycott against the aggressor had failed because of the hypocrisy and greed of the European governments. Some of them still kept up an appearance of sticking to the boycott, the others not even that. The aggressor needed petrol. In the past the Country of the Revolution had covered a considerable part of this need. If now it stopped the supplies, other countries would greedily spring into the breach: indeed they asked nothing better than to push the Country of the Revolution from the world markets. Romantic gestures of that sort would only hamper the development of industry OverThere, and with it the revolutionary movement all over the world. So the inference was clear.
Paul and the three dock-hands nodded. They were slow thinkers; everything the comrade from Over There was telling them sounded quite convincing; it was only a theoretical discourse, of no immediate consequence to them. They did not see the actual point he was aiming at; none of them thought of the black flotilla which was approaching their harbour. Only Little Loewy and the writer with the twisted face exchanged a quick glance. Rubashov noticed it. He finished a shade more drily, without warmth in his voice:
"That is really all I had to tell you as far as principle is concerned. You are expected to carry out the decisions of the C.C. and to explain the ins and outs of the matter to the politically less developed comrades, if any of them should have any doubts. For the moment I have no more to say."
There was silence for a minute. Rubashov took his pince-nez off and lit a cigarette. Little Loewy said in a casual tone of voice:
We thank the speaker. Does anybody wish to ask any questions?"
Nobody did. After a while one of the three dock workers said awkwardly:
"There is not much to be said to it. The comrades Over There must know what they are about. We, of course, must continue to work for the boycott. You can trust us. In our port nothing will get through for the swine."
His two colleagues nodded. Wrestler Paul confirmed: "Not here," made a bellicose grimace and waggled his ears for fun.
For a moment Rubashov believed he was faced by an oppositional faction; he only realized gradually that the others had really not grasped the point. He looked at Little Loewy, in the hope that he would clear up the misunderstanding. But Little Loewy held his eyes lowered and was silent. Suddenly the writer said with a nervous twitch:
"Couldn't you choose another harbour this time for your little transactions? Must it always be us?"
The dockers looked at him in surprise; they did not understand what he meant by "transaction"; the idea of the small black fleet which was approaching their coast through mist and smoke was further than ever from their minds. But Rubashov had expected this question:
"It is both politically and geographically advisable," he said. "The goods will be conveyed from there by land. We have, of course, no reason to keep anything secret: still, it is more prudent to avoid a sensation which the reactionary Press might exploit."
The writer again exchanged a glance with Little Loewy. The dock-hands looked at Rubashov uncomprehendingly; one could see them working it out slowly in their heads. Suddenly Paul said in a changed, hoarse voice:
"What, actually, are you talking about?"
They all looked at him. His neck was red, and he was looking at Rubashov with bulging eyes. Little Loewy said with restraint:
"Have you only just noticed?"
Rubashov looked from one to the other, and then said quietly:
"I omitted to tell you the details. The five cargo boats of the Commissariat for Foreign Trade are expected to arrive tomorrow morning, weather permitting."
Even now it took several minutes before they had all understood. Nobody said a word. They all looked at Rubashov. Then Paul stood up slowly, flung his cap to the ground, and left the room. Two of his colleagues turned their heads after him. Nobody spoke. Then Little Loewy cleared his throat and said:
"The Comrade speaker has just explained to us the reasons for this business: if they do not deliver the supplies, others will. Who else wishes to speak?"
The docker who had already spoken shifted on his chair and said:
"We know that tune. In a strike there are always people who say: if I don't do the work, someone else will take it. We've heard enough of that. That's how blacklegs talk."
Again there was a pause. One heard outside the front door being slammed by Paul. Then Rubashov said:
"Comrades, the interests of our industrial development Over There come before everything else. Sentimentality does not get us any further. Think that over."
The docker shoved his chin forward and said:
"We have already thought it over. We've heard enough of it. You Over There must give the example. The whole world looks to you for it. You talk of solidarity and sacrifice and discipline, and at the same time you use your fleet for plain blacklegging."
At that little Loewy lifted his head suddenly; he was pale; he saluted Rubashov with his pipe and said low and very quickly:
"What the comrade said is also my opinion. Has anyone anything further to say? The meeting is closed."
Rubashov limped out of the room on his crutches. Events followed their prescribed and inevitable course. While the little old-fashioned fleet was entering the harbour, Rubashov exchanged a few telegrams with the competent authorities Over There. Three days later the leaders of the dockers' section were expelled from the Party and Little Loewy was denounced in the official Party organ as anagent provocateur . Another three days later Little Loewy had hanged himself.

13

The night was even worse. Rubashov could not sleep until dawn. Shivers ran over him at regular intervals; his tooth was throbbing. He had the sensation that all the association centres of his brain were sore and inflamed; yet he lay under the painful compulsion to conjure up pictures and voices. He thought of young Richard in the black Sunday suit, with his inflamed eyes "But you can't throw me to the wolves, comrade. ..." He thought of little deformed Loewy: "Who else wishes to speak?" There were so many who did wish to speak. For the movement was without scruples; she rolled towards her goal unconcernedly and deposed the corpses of the drowned in the windings of her course. Her course had many twists and windings; such was the law of her being. And whosoever could not follow her crooked course was washed on to the bank, for such was her law. The motives of the individual did not matter to her. His conscience did not matter toher, neither did she care what went on in his head and his heart. The Party knew only one crime: to swerve from the course laid out; and only one punishment: death. Death was no mystery in the movement; there was nothing exalted about it: it was the logical solution to political divergences.
Not before the early hours of the morning did Rubashov, exhausted, fall asleep on his bunk. He was woken again by the bugle blast which heralded a new day; shortly afterwards he was fetched by the old warder and two officials in uniform, to be conducted to the doctor.
Rubashov had hoped to be able to read the name.cards on the cell-doors of Hare-lip and of No. 402, but he was taken in the opposite direction. The cell to his right was empty. It was one of the last cells of that end of the corridor; the wing of isolation cells was shut off by a heavy concrete door, which the old man opened with much fumbling. They now passed through a long gallery, Rubashov, with the old warder in front, the two men in uniform behind. Here all the cards on the cell-doors bore several names; they heard talking, laughter and even singing coming from the cells; Rubashov knew at once that they were in the section for petty criminals. They passed the barber's shop, of which the door stood open; a prisoner with the sharp bird's face of the old convict was just being shaved; two peasants were having their heads shorn: all three turned their heads curiously as Rubashov and his escort marched past. They came to a door with a red cross painted on it. The warder knocked respectfully, and he and Rubashov went in; the two uniformed men waited outside.
The infirmary was small and the air stuffy; it smelled of carbolic and tobacco. A bucket and two pans were filled to the brim with cotton-wool swabs and dirty bandages. The doctor sat at a table with his back to them, reading the newspaper and chewing bread and dripping. The newspaper lay on a heap of instruments, pincers and syringes. When the warder had shut the door, the doctor turned slowly round. He was bald and had an unusually small skull, covered with white fluff, which reminded Rubashov of an ostrich.
"He says he's got toothache," said the old man.
"Toothache?" said the doctor, looking past Rubashov. "Open your mouth, and be quick about it."
Rubashov looked at him through his glasses.
"I beg to point out,"he said quietly, "that I am a political prisoner and entitled to correct treatment."
The doctor turned his head to the warder:
"Who is this bird?"
The warder gave Rubashov's name. For a second Rubashov felt the round ostrich eyes rest on him. Then the doctor said:
"Your cheek is swollen. Open your mouth."
Rubashov's tooth was not aching at the moment. He opened his mouth.
"You have no teeth left at all in the left side of your upper jaw," said the doctor, probing with his finger in Rubashov's mouth. Suddenly Rubashov became pale and had to lean against the wall.
"There it is!" said the doctor. "The root of the right eye-tooth is broken off and has remained in the jaw."
Rubashov breathed deeply several times. The pain was throbbing from his jaw to his eye and right to the back of his head. He felt each pulsation of the blood singly, at regular intervals. The doctor had sat down again and spread out his newspaper. "If you like I can extract the root for you," he said and took a mouthful of bread and dripping. "We have, of course, no anaesthetics here. The operation takes anything from half an hour to an hour."
Rubashov heard the doctor's voice through a mist. He leant against the wall and breathed deeply. "Thank you," he said. "Not now." He thought of Hare-lip and the "steambath" and of the ridiculous gesture yesterday, when he had stubbed out the cigarette on the back of his hand. Things will go badly, he thought.
When he was back in his cell, he let himself drop on the bunk and fell asleep at once.
At noon, when the soup came, he was no longer omitted; from then on he received his rations regularly. The toothache lessened and remained within bearable limits. Rubashov hoped the abscess in the root had opened by itself.
Three days later he was brought up for examination for the first time.

14

It was eleven o'clock in the morning when they came to fetch him. By the warder's solemn expression, Rubashov guessed at once where they were going. He followed the warder, with the serene nonchalance which had always come to him in moments of danger, as an unexpected gift of mercy.
They went the same way as three days ago when going to the doctor. The concrete door again opened and crashed shut; strange, thought Rubashov, how quickly one grows used to an intense environment; he felt as if he had been breathing the air of this corridor for years, as if the stale atmosphere of all the prisons he had known had been stored away here.
They passed the barber's shop and the doctor's door which was shut; three prisoners stood outside, guarded by a sleepy warder, waiting their turn.
Beyond the doctor's door was new ground for Rubashov. They passed a spiral staircase leading down into the depths. What was down there--store-rooms, punishment cells? Rubashov tried to guess, with the interest of the expert. He did not like the look of that staircase. They crossed a narrow, windowless courtyard; it was a blind shaft, rather dark, but over it hung the open sky. On the other side of the courtyard the corridors were brighter; the doors were no longer of concrete, but of painted wood, with brass handles; busy officials passed them; behind a door a wireless was playing, behind another one heard a typewriter. They were in the administrative department.
They stopped at the last door, at the end of the corridor; the warder knocked. Inside someone was telephoning; a quiet voice called out: "A minute, please," and went on patiently saying "Yes" and "Quite" into the receiver. The voice seemed familiar to Rubashov, but he could not place it. It was an agreeably masculine voice, slightly husky; he had certainly heard it somewhere before. "Come in," said the voice; the warder opened the door and shut it immediately behind Rubashov. Rubashov saw a desk; behind it sat his old college friend and former battalion commander, Ivanov; he was looking at him smilingly while putting back the receiver. "So here we are again," said Ivanov.
Rubashov still stood at the door. "What a pleasant surprise," he said drily.
"Sit down," said Ivanov with a polite gesture. He had risen; standing, he was half a head taller than Rubashov. He looked at him smilingly. They both sat down--Ivanov behind the desk, Rubashov in front of it. They stared at each other for some time and with unrestrained curiosity--Ivanov with his almost tender smile, Rubashov expectant and watchful. His glance slid to Ivanov's right leg under the table.
"Oh, that's all right," said Ivanov. "Artificial leg with automatic joints and rustless chromium-plating; I can swim, ride, drive a car and dance. Will you have a cigarette?"
He held out a wooden cigarette case to Rubashov. Rubashov looked at the cigarettes and thought of his first visit to the military hospital after Ivanov's leg had been amputated. Ivanov had asked him to procure veronal for him, and in a discussion which lasted the whole afternoon, had tried to prove that every man had a right to suicide. Rubashov had finally asked for time to reflect, and had in the same night been transferred to another sector of the front. It was only years later that he had met Ivanov again. He looked at the cigarettes in the wooden case. They were hand-made, of loose, blonde American tobacco.
"Is this still an unofficial prelude, or have the hostilities started?" asked Rubashov. "In the latter case, I won't have one. You know the etiquette."
"Rubbish," said Ivanov.
"Well then, rubbish," said Rubashov and lit one of Ivanov's cigarettes. He inhaled deeply, trying not to let his enjoyment be seen. "And how is the rheumatism in your shoulders?" he asked.
"All right, thank you," said Ivanov, "and how is your burn?"
He smiled and pointed innocently at Rubashov's left hand. On the back of the hand, between the bluish veins, in the place where three days ago he had stubbed out his cigarette, was a blister the size of a copper coin. For a minute both looked at Rubashov's hand lying in his lap. How does he know that? thought Rubashov. He has had me spied on. He felt more shame than anger; he took one last deep pull at his cigarette and threw it away. "As far as I am concerned the unofficial part is over," he said.
Ivanov blew smoke rings and watched him with the same tenderly ironic smile. "Don't become aggressive," he said.
"Make allowances," said Rubashov. "Did I arrest you or did you people arrest me?"
"We arrested you," said Ivanov. He put out his cigarette, lit another one and held out the box to Rubashov, who did not move. "Thedevil take you," said Ivanov. "Do you remember the story of the veronal?" He bent forward and blew the smoke of his cigarette into Rubashov's face.
"I do not want you to be shot," he said slowly. He leaned back again in his chair. "Thedevil take you," he repeated, smiling again.
"Touching of you," said Rubashov. "Why actually do you people intend to have me shot?"
Ivanov let a few seconds go by. He smoked and drew figures with his pencil on the blotting-paper. He seemed to be searching for the exact words.
"Listen, Rubashov," he said finally. "There is one thing I would like to point out to you. You have now repeatedly said ‘you'--meaning State and Party, as opposed to ‘I'--that is, Nicolas Salmanovitch Rubashov. For the public, one needs, of course, a trial and legal justification. For us, what I have just said should be enough."
Rubashov thought this over; he was somewhat taken aback. For a moment it was as if Ivanov had hit a tuning fork, to which his mind responded of its own accord. All he had believedin, fought for and preached during the last forty years swept over his mind in an irresistible wave. The individual was nothing, the Party was all; the branch which broke from the tree must wither. ... Rubashov rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve. Ivanov was sitting back in his chair, smoking; he was no longer smiling. Suddenly Rubashov's eye was caught by a square patch on the wall lighter than the rest of the wall-paper. He knew at once that the picture with the bearded heads and the numbered names had hung there--Ivanov followed his glance without changing his expression.
Your argument is somewhat anachronistic," said Rubashov. "As you quite rightly remarked, we were accustomed always to use the plural ‘we' and to avoid as far as possible the first person singular. I have rather lost the habit of that form of speech; you stick to it. But who is this ‘we' in whose name you speak to-day? It needs re-defining. That is the point."
"Entirely my own opinion," said Ivanov. "I am glad that we have reached the heart of the matter so soon. In other words: you are convinced that ‘we'--that is to say, the Party, the State and the masses behind it--no longer represent the interests of the Revolution."
"I should leave the masses out of it," said Rubashov.
"Since when have you this supreme contempt for the plebs?" asked Ivanov. "Has that, too, a connection with the grammatical change to the first person singular?"
He leant across his desk with a look of benevolent mockery. His head now hid the light patch on the wall and suddenly the scene in the picture gallery occurred to Rubashov, when Richard's head had come between him and the folded hands of thePietà . In the same instant a spasm of pain throbbed from his jaw up to his forehead and ear. For a second he shut his eyes. "Now I am paying," he thought. An instant later he did not know whether he had not spoken aloud.
"How do you mean?" Ivanov's voice asked. It sounded close to his ear, mocking and slightly surprised.
The pain faded; a peaceful stillness pervaded his mind. "Leave the masses out of it," he repeated. You understand nothing about them. Nor, probably, doI any more. Once, when the great ‘we' still existed, we understood them as no one had ever understood them before. We had penetrated into theirdepths, we worked in the amorphous raw material of history itself. ..."
Without noticing it, he had taken a cigarette out of Ivanov's case, which still lay open on the table. Ivanov bent forward and lit it for him.
"At that time," Rubashov went on, "we were called the Party of the Plebs. What did the others know of history? Passing ripples, little eddies and breaking waves. They wondered at the changing forms of the surface and could not explain them. But we had descended into the depths, into the formless, anonymous masses, which at all times constituted the substance of history; and we were the first to discover her laws of motion.We had discovered the laws of her inertia,' of the slow changing of her molecular structure, and of her sudden eruptions. That was the greatness of our doctrine. The Jacobins were moralists; we were empirics. We dug in the primeval mud of history and there we found her laws. We knew more than ever men have known about mankind; that is why our revolution succeeded. And now you have buried it all again. ..."
Ivanov was sitting back with his legs stretched out, listening and drawing figures on his blotting-paper.
"Go on," he said. "I am curious to know what you are driving at."
Rubashov was smoking with relish. He felt the nicotine making him slightly dizzy after his long abstinence.
"As you notice, I am talking my head off my neck," he said and looked up smilingly at the faded patch on the wall where the photograph of the old guard had once hung. This time Ivanov did not follow his glance. "Well," said Rubashov, "one more makes no difference. Everything is buried; the men, their wisdom and their hopes. You killed the ‘We'; you destroyed it. Do you really maintain that the masses are still behind you? Other usurpers in Europe pretend the same thing with as much right as you ..."
He took another cigarette and lit it himself this time, as Ivanov did not move.
"Forgive my pompousness," he went on, "but do you really believe the people are still behind you? It bears you, dumb and resigned, as it bears others in other countries, but there is no response in its depths. The masses have become deaf and dumb again, the great silentx of history, indifferent as the sea carrying the ships. Every passing light is reflected on its surface, but underneath is darkness and silence. A long time ago we stirred up the depths, but that is over. In other words"--he paused and put on his pince-nez--"in those days we made history; now you make politics. That's the whole difference."
Ivanov leant back in his chair and blew smoke rings. "I'm sorry, but the difference is not quite clear to me," he said. "Perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain."
"Certainly," said Rubashov. "A mathematician once said that algebra was the science for lazy people--one does not work outx , but operates with it as if one knew it. In our case,x stands for the anonymous masses, the people. Politics mean operating with thisx without worrying about its actual nature. Making history is to recognizex for what it stands for in the equation."
"Pretty," said Ivanov.But unfortunately rather abstract. To return to more tangible things: you mean, therefore, that ‘we'--namely, Party and State--no longer represent the interests of the Revolution, of the masses or, if you like, the progress of humanity."
"This time you have grasped it," said Rubashov smiling. Ivanov did not answer his smile.
"When did you develop this opinion?"
"Fairly gradually: during the last few years," said Rubashov.
"Can't you tell me more exactly? One year?Two? Three years?"
"That's a stupid question," said Rubashov. "At what age did you become adult?At seventeen?At eighteen and a half?At nineteen?"
"It's you who are pretending to be stupid," said Ivanov. "Each step in one's spiritual development is the result of definite experiences. If you really want to know: I became a man at seventeen, when I was sent into exile for the first time."
"At that time you were quite a decent fellow," said Rubashov. "Forget it." He, again looked at the light patch on the wall and threw away his cigarette.
"I repeat my question," said Ivanov and bent forward slightly. "For how long have you belonged to the organized opposition?"
The telephone rang. Ivanov took the receiver off, said, "I am busy," and hung it up again. He leant back in his chair, leg stretched out, and waited for Rubashov's answer.
"You know as well as I do," said Rubashov, "that I never joined an oppositional organization."
"As you like," said Ivanov. "You put me into the painful position of having to act the bureaucrat." He put a hand in a drawer and pulled out a bundle of files.
"Let's start with 1933," he said and spread the papers out in front of him."Outbreak of the dictatorship and crushing of the Party in the very country where victory seemed closest. You are sent there illegally, with the task of carrying through a purging and reorganization of the ranks. ..."

Rubashov had leant back and was listening to his biography. He thought of Richard, and of the twilight in the avenue in front of the museum, where he had stopped the taxi.
"… Three months later: you are arrested.Two years' imprisonment. Behaviour exemplary, nothing can be proved against you.Release and triumphal return. ..."
Ivanov paused, threw him a quick glance and went on:
"You were much fêted on your return. We did not meet then; you were probably too busy. ... I did not take it amiss, by the way. After all, one could not expect you to look up all your old friends. But I saw you twice at meetings, up on the platform. You were still on crutches and looked very worn-out. The logical thing would have been for you to go to a sanatorium for a few months, and then to take some
Government post--after having been four years away on foreign mission. But after a fortnight you were already applying for another mission abroad. ..."
He bent forward suddenly, moving his face closer to Rubashov:
"Why--?" he asked, and for the firsttime his voice was sharp. "You did not feel at ease here, presumably? During your absence certain changes had taken place in the country, which you evidently did not appreciate."
He waited for Rubashov to say something; but Rubashov was sitting quietly in his chair, rubbing his pince-nez on his sleeve, and did not answer.
"It was shortly after the first crop of the opposition had been convicted and liquidated. You had intimate friends amongst them. When it became known what degree of decay the opposition had attained, there was an outbreak of indignation throughout the country. You said nothing. After a fortnight, you went abroad, although you could not yet walk without crutches. ..."
To Rubashov it seemed that he smelt again the smell of the docks in the little port, a mixture of seaweed and petrol; wrestler Paul wagging his ears; Little Loewy saluting with his pipe. ... He had hanged himself on a beam in his attic. The dilapidated old house trembled every time a lorry passed; Rubashov had been told that on the morning when Little Loewy was found, his body had turned slowly on its own axis, so that at first they thought he still moved. ...
"The mission successfully concluded, you were nominated leader of our Trade Delegation in B. This time, too, you carried out your duties irreproachably. The new commercial treaty with B. is a definite success. In appearance your behaviour remains exemplary and spotless. But six months after you took over this post, your two closest collaborators, one of whom is your secretary,Arlova, have to be recalled under the suspicion of oppositional conspiracy. This suspicion is confirmed by the inquiry. You are expected to disavow them publicly. You remain silent. ...
"Another six months later you are yourself recalled. The preparations for the second trial of the opposition are proceeding. Your name occurs repeatedly at the trial; Arlova refers to you for her exculpation. Under these circumstances, to maintain your silence would look like a confession of guilt. You know that and yet you refuse to make a public declaration until the Party sends you an ultimatum. Only then, when your head is at stake, do you condescend to give a declaration of loyalty, which automatically finishes Arlova. Her fate you know. …"
Rubashov was silent, and noticed that his tooth was aching again. He knew her fate.Also Richard's. Also Little Loewy's.Also his own. He looked at the light patch on the wall, the only trace left by the men with the numbered heads. Their fate, too, was known to him. For once History had taken a run, which at last promised a more dignified form of life for mankind; now it was over.So why all this talk and all this ceremony? If anything in human beings could survive destruction, the girl Arlova lay somewhere in the great emptiness, still staring with her good cow's eyes at Comrade Rubashov, who had been her idol and had sent her to her death. ... His tooth became worse and worse.
"Shall I read you the public statement you made at that time?" asked Ivanov.
"No, thank you," said Rubashov, and noticed that his voice sounded hoarse.
"As you remember, your statement--which one could also describe as a confession--ended with a sharp condemnation of the opposition and with a declaration of unconditional adhesion both to the policy
of the Party and to the person of No. 1."
"Stop this," said Rubashov in a flat voice. "You know how this sort of statement is produced. If not, so much the better for you. For God's sake, stop this comedy."
"We have nearly finished," said Ivanov. "We are now only two years from the present time. During these two years you were head of the State Aluminum Trust. A year ago, on the occasion of the third trial of the opposition, the principal accused mentioned your name repeatedly in somewhat obscure contexts. Nothing tangible is revealed, but the suspicion grows in the ranks of the Party. You make a new public statement, in which you proclaim anew your devotion to the policy of the Leadership and condemn the criminality of the opposition in still sharper terms. ... That was six months ago. And to-day you admit that for years already you have considered the policy of the Leadership to be wrong and harmful. ..."
He paused and leant back again comfortably in his chair.
"Your first declarations of loyalty," he continued, "were therefore merely means to a definite end. I beg you to take note that I am not moralizing. We both grew up in the same tradition and have on these matters the same conception. You were convinced that our policy was wrong and that your own was right. To say that openly at that time would have meant your expulsion from the Party, with the resulting impossibility to continue your work for your own ideas. So you had to throw out ballast in order to be able to serve the policy which, in your opinion, was the only right one. In your place, I would, of course, have acted in the same way. So far everything is in order."
"And what follows?" asked Rubashov.
Ivanov had again his former amiable smile.
"What I don't understand," he said, "is this. You now openly admit that for years you have had the conviction that we were ruining the Revolution; and in the same breath you deny that you belonged to the opposition and that you plotted against us. Do you really expect me to believe that you sat watching us with your hands in your lap--while, according to your conviction, we led country and Party to destruction?"
Rubashov shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps I was too old and used up. ... But believe what you like," he said.
Ivanov lit another cigarette. His voice became quiet and penetrating:
"Do you really want me to believe that you sacrificed Arlova and denied those"--he jerked his chin towards the light patch on the wall-- "only in order to save your own head?"
Rubashov was silent. Quite a long time passed. Ivanov's head bent even closer over the writing desk.
"I don't understand you," he said. "Half an hour ago you made me a speech full of the most impassioned attacks against our policy, any fraction of which would have been enough to finish you off. And now you deny such a simple logical deduction as that you belonged to an oppositional group, for which, in any case, we hold all the proofs."
"Really?" said Rubashov. "If you have all the proofs, why do you need my confession? Proofs of what, by the way?"
"Amongst others," said Ivanov slowly, "proofs of a projected attempt on No. 1's life."
Again there was a silence. Rubashov put on his pince-nez.
"Allow me to ask you a question in my turn," he said "Do you really believe this idiocy or do you only pretend to?"
In the corners of Ivanov's eyes appeared the same nearly tender smile as before:
"I told you. We have proofs. To be more exact: confessions. To be still more exact: the confession of the man who was actually to commit the attempt on your instigation."
"Congratulations," said Rubashov. "What is his name?" Ivanov went on smiling.
"An indiscreet question."
"May I read that confession? Or be confronted with the man?"
Ivanov smiled. He blew the smoke of his cigarette with friendly mockery into Rubashov's face. It was unpleasant to Rubashov, but he did not move his head.
"Do you remember the veronal?" said Ivanov slowly. "I think I have already asked you that. Now the rô les are interchanged: to-day it is you who are about to throw yourself head first down the precipice.But not with my help. You then convinced me that suicide was petty bourgeois romanticism. I shall see that you do not succeed in committing it. Then we shall be quits."
Rubashov was silent. He was thinking over whether Ivanov was lying or sincere--and at the same time he had the strange wish, almost a physical impulse, to touch the light patch on the wall with his fingers. "Nerves," he thought."Obsessions. Stepping only on the black tiles, murmuring senseless phrases, rubbing my pince-nez on my sleeve--there, I am doing it again. ..."
"I am curious to know," he said aloud, "what scheme you have for my salvation. The way in which you have examined me up till now seems to have exactly the opposite aim."
Ivanov's smile became broad and beaming. "You old fool," he said, and, reaching over the table, he grasped Rubashov's coat button. "I was obliged to let you explodeonce, else you would have exploded at the wrong time. Haven't you even noticed that I have no stenographer present?"
He took a cigarette out of the case and forced it into Rubashov's mouth without letting go his coat button. "You're behaving like an infant.bike a romantic infant," he added. "Now we are going to concoct a nice little confession and that will be all for to-day."
Rubashov at last managed to free himself from Ivanov's grip. He looked at him sharply through his pince-nez. "And what would be in this confession?" he asked
Ivanov beamed at hint unabatedly. "In the confession will be written," he said, "that you admit, since such and such a year, to have belonged to such and such a group of the opposition; but that you emphatically deny having organized or planned an assassination; that, on the contrary, you withdrew from the group when you learned of the opposition's criminal and terrorist plans."
For the first time during their discussion, Rubashov smiled, too.
"If that is the object of all this talk," he said, "we can break it off immediately."
"Let me finish what I was going to say," said Ivanov without any impatience. "I knew, of course, that you would stall. Let's first consider the moral or sentimental side of the matter. You do not give away anybody by what you admit. The whole bunch was arrested long before you, and half of them have been already liquidated; you know that yourself. From the rest, we can obtain other confessions than this harmless stuff--in fact, any confession we like. ... I take it that you understand me and that my frankness convinces you."
"In other words: you yourself don't believe the story of the plot against No. 1," said Rubashov. "Then, why don't you confront me with this mysterious X, who made this alleged confession?"
"Think it over a bit," said Ivanov. "Put yourself in my place--after all, our positions might equally well be reversed--and find out the answer for yourself."
Rubashov thought it over. "You were given definite instructions from above for the handling of my case," he said.
Ivanov smiled. "That's a bit too sharply put. In actual fact, it is not yet decided whether your case should belong to category A or category P. You know the terms?"
Rubashov nodded; he knew them.
"You begin to understand," said Ivanov. "A means: administrative case, P means: public trial. The great majority o€ political cases are tried administratively--that is to say, those who would be no good in a public trial. ... If you fall into category A, you will be removed from my authority. The trial by the Administrative Board is secret and, as you know, somewhat summary. There is no opportunity for confrontations and that sort of thing. Think of …" Ivanov cited three or four names, and gave a fugitive glance at the light patch on the wall. When he turned towards Rubashov again, the latter noticed for the first time a tormented look in his face, a fixedness in his eye, as though he were not focusing him, Rubashov, but a point at some distance behind him.
Ivanov repeated again, in a lower tone, the names of their former friends. I knew them as well as you did," he went on. "But you must allow that we are as convinced that you and they would mean the end of the Revolution as you are of the reverse. That is the essential point. The methods follow by logical deduction. We can't afford to lose ourselves in judicial subtleties. Did you, in your time?"
Rubashov said nothing.
"It all depends," Ivanov went on, "on your being classed in category P, and on the case remaining in my hands. You know from what point of view those cases are selected, which are given a public trial. I have to provea certain willingness on your part. For that I need your deposition with a partial confession.if you play the hero, and insist on giving the impression that there is nothing to be done with you, you will be finished off on the grounds of X's confession. On the other hand, if you make a partial confession, a basis is given for a more thorough examination. On this basis, I shall be able to obtain a confrontation; we will refute the worst points of the accusation and plead guilty within certain carefully defined limits. Even so, we shan't be able to make it cheaper than twenty years; that means, in fact, two or three years, and then an amnesty; and in five years you will be back in the ring again. Now have the goodness to think it over calmly before answering."
"I have already thought it over," said Rubashov. "I reject your proposition. Logically, you may be right. But I have had enough of this kind of logic. I am tired and I don't want to play this game any more. Be kind enough to have me taken back to my cell."
"As you like," said Ivanov. "I did not expect that you would agree at once. This kind of conversation usually has a retarded effect. You have a fortnight's time. Ask to be taken to me again when you have thought the matter over, or send me a written declaration. For I have no doubt that you will send one."
Rubashov stood up; Ivanov also rose; again he ranged half a head above Rubashov. He pressed an electric bell next to his desk. While they waited for the warder to come and fetch Rubashov, Ivanov said:
"You wrote in your last article, a few months ago, that this next decade will decide the fate of the world in our era. Don't you want to be here for that?"
He smiled down at Rubashov. In the corridor steps were approaching; the door was opened. Two warders came in and saluted. Without a word, Rubashov stepped between them; they started the march back to his cell. The noises in the corridors had now died out; from some cells came a subdued snoring, which sounded like moaning. All over the building the yellow, stale electric light was burning.

Good grief! Is that the whole book?

Is that the whole book?? did you type all that out? i just wasted 5 bucks...

Haha
Is this illegal?

probably. but who's going to look at our APMEH forum?