Darkness at Noon (11 page)
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 deathâ¦. 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 statementâwhich one could also describe as a confessionâended 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 termsâ¦. 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 harmfulâ¦.”
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 lapâwhile, according to your conviction, we led country and Party to destruction?”
Rubashov shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps I was too old and used upâ¦. 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”âhe jerked his chin towards the light patch on the wallâ“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 the 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 rôles 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 sincereâand 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 sleeveâthere, I am doing it againâ¦.”
“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 explode once, 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. Like 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 him 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 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 stuffâin fact, any confession we likeâ¦. 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 placeâafter all, our positions might equally well be reversedâand 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 of political cases are tried administrativelyâthat is to say, those who would be no good in a public trialâ¦. 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 prove a 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.
When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death. For all order is for the sake of the community, and the individual must be sacrificed to the common good.
DIETRICH VON NIEHEIM, BISHOP OF VERDEN:
De schismate libri III,
A.D.
1411
Extract from the diary of N. S. Rubashov, on the fifth day of imprisonment
“⦠The ultimate truth is penultimately always a falsehood. He who will be proved right in the end appears to be wrong and harmful before it.
“But who will be proved right? It will only be known later. Meanwhile he is bound to act on credit
and to sell his soul to the devil, in the hope of history's absolution.
“It is said that No. 1 has Machiavelli's Prince lying permanently by his bedside. So he should: since then, nothing really important has been said about the rules of political ethics. We were the first to replace the nineteenth century's liberal ethics of âfair play' by the revolutionary ethics of the twentieth century. In that also we were right: a revolution conducted according to the rules of cricket is an absurdity. Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means. We introduced neo-Machiavellism into this country; the others, the counter-revolutionary dictatorships, have clumsily imitated it. We were neo-Machiavellians in the name of universal reasonâthat was our greatness; the others in the name of a national romanticism, that is their anachronism. That is why we will in the end be absolved by history; but not theyâ¦.
“Yet for the moment we are thinking and acting on credit. As we have thrown overboard all conventions and rules of cricket-morality, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic. We are under the terrible compulsion to follow our thought down to its final consequence and to act in accordance to it. We are sailing without ballast; therefore each touch on the helm is a matter of life or death.
“A short time ago, our leading agriculturist, B., was shot with thirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion that nitrate artificial manure
was superior to potash. No. 1 is all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs. In a nationally centralized agriculture, the alternative of nitrate of potash is of enormous importance: it can decide the issue of the next war. If No. 1 was in the right, history will absolve him, and the execution of the thirty-one men will be a mere bagatelle. If he was wrong â¦
“It is that alone that matters who is objectively in the right. The cricket-moralists are agitated by quite another problem: whether B. was subjectively in good faith when he recommended nitrogen. If he was not, according to their ethics he should be shot, even if it should subsequently be shown that nitrogen would have been better after all. If he was in good faith, then he should be acquitted and allowed to continue making propaganda for nitrate, even if the country should be ruined by itâ¦.
“That is, of course, complete nonsense. For us the question of subjective good faith is of no interest. He who is in the wrong must pay; he who is in the right will be absolved. That is the law of historical credit; it was our law.
“History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth; for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for forty years before each step in his development. And he has to be driven through the desert with threats and promises, by imaginary terrors and imaginary consolations, so that he should not sit down prematurely to rest and divert himself by worshipping golden calves.
“We have learnt history more thoroughly than
the others. We differ from all others in our logical consistency. We know that virtue does not matter to history, and that crimes remain unpunished; but that every error had its consequences and venges itself unto the seventh generation. Therefore we concentrated all our efforts on preventing error and destroying the very seeds of it. Never in history has so much power over the future of humanity been concentrated in so few hands as in our case. Each wrong idea we follow is a crime committed against future generations. Therefore we have to punish wrong ideas as others punish crimes: with death. We were held for madmen because we followed every thought down to its final consequence and acted accordingly. We were compared to the inquisition because, like them, we constantly felt in ourselves the whole weight of responsibility for the superindividual life to come. We resembled the great Inquisitors in that we persecuted the seeds of evil not only in men's deeds, but in their thoughts. We admitted no private sphere, not even inside a man's skull. We lived under the compulsion of working things out to their final conclusions. Our minds were so tensely charged that the slightest collision caused a mortal short-circuit. Thus we were fated to mutual destruction.
“I was one of those. I have thought and acted as I had to; I destroyed people whom I was fond of, and gave power to others I did not like. History put me where I stood; I have exhausted the credit which she accorded me; if I was right I have nothing to repent of; if wrong, I will pay.
“But how can the present decide what will be judged truth in the future? We are doing the work of prophets without their gift. We replaced vision by logical deduction; but although we all started from the same point of departure, we came to divergent results. Proof disproved proof, and finally we had to recur to faithâto axiomatic faith in the rightness of one's own reasoning. That is the crucial point. We have thrown all ballast overboard; only one anchor holds us: faith in one's self. Geometry is the purest realization of human reason; but Euclid's axioms cannot be proved. He who does not believe in them sees the whole building crash.
“No. 1 has faith in himself, tough, slow, sullen and unshakable. He has the most solid anchor-chain of all. Mine has worn thin in the last few yearsâ¦.
“The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I am lost.”