In the First Circle

by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

  “Yes.”

  “The trouble with pinning our hopes on the Americans is that it eases our conscience and weakens our will; we win the right not to struggle, the right to submit, to take the line of least resistance and gradually degenerate. I do not agree with those who claim that over the years our people have begun to see more clearly, that something is maturing in them. Some say that it is impossible to oppress a whole people indefinitely. That’s a lie! It is possible! We can see for ourselves how our people have degenerated, how uncouth they have become, how indifferent they are not only to the fate of the country, not only to the fate of their fellows, but even to their own fate and that of their children. Indifference, the organism’s last self-preservative reaction, has become our defining characteristic. Hence also the popularity of vodka—unprecedented even by Russian standards. This is the terrible indifference of the man who sees his life not cracked, not chipped, but shattered, so fouled up that only alcoholic oblivion makes living still worthwhile. If vodka were prohibited, Revolution would break out immediately. But while he can charge forty-four rubles for a liter that costs ten kopecks to make, the Communist Shylock will not be tempted to enact a dry law.”

  Nerzhin did not react, did not stir. Gerasimovich could hardly see his face in the dim light from the lights around the camp, reflected from the ceiling. Although he knew nothing about this man at all, he had chosen to share with him thoughts that even bosom friends would not dare whisper to each other in that country.

  “Corrupting the people took only thirty years. Restoring them to health will take—how long? Three hundred years? More? That is why we must hurry. Given the impossibility of a popular Revolution, the harm done by pinning our hopes on help from the outside, there remains only one way out: a palace revolt, pure and simple. As Lenin used to say, ‘Give us an organization of Revolutionaries, and we will turn Russia upside down!’ They threw together such an organization, and they did turn Russia upside down!”

  “God forbid!”

  “I don’t think the creation of such an organization would be difficult for us, with the knowledge of people we have acquired in jail and our ability to pick out traitors at a glance; you and I, for instance, know that we can confide in each other, though we have never talked before. It would take only three to five thousand courageous and quick-thinking men able to handle weapons, plus a few intellectuals—”

  “Like those making the atom bomb. . .?”

  “We would establish links with the military chiefs—”

  “Those puffed-up chickens!”

  “To ensure their benevolent neutrality. And we would need to take out only Stalin, Molotov, Beria, and a few others. And immediately announce by radio that the whole of the upper, middle, and lower strata remain in place.”

  “Remain in place? And is that your elite?”

  “For the time being! Temporarily. That is the peculiar feature of totalitarian countries; it is difficult to carry out a coup, but once you have, ruling them could not be easier. Macchiavelli said that the day after you expel the sultan, you can worship Christ in all the mosques.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions! We can’t be sure who leads and who is led; does the sultan lead them, or do they lead him without realizing it? As for the supposed neutrality of those wild pigs of generals, who drove whole divisions onto minefields just to save themselves from the penal battalion. . . ! They’ll tear anyone to ribbons to defend their sty! And then again Stalin will escape by a subterranean passage. . . . And as for your five thousand men of action, if they haven’t been turned in by informants already, they’ll be machine-gunned from listening posts. And anyway,” Nerzhin said impatiently, “there aren’t another five thousand like you, not in Russia! It’s only men in prison, not so-called free men with families to care for, who can think so boldly, act so uninhibitedly, and contemplate such sacrifices. But, of course, prison is just the place from which nothing can be achieved! You invited me to pick holes in your scheme. Well, it consists of nothing but holes! Our overweening physicists and mathematicians need to learn that social activity also requires special study and special skills. You can’t describe it in mathematical terms. But it isn’t just that! It isn’t just that!” (His voice was becoming too loud for the silence of the dark stairway.) “Alas, you’ve chosen the wrong person to advise you! I simply don’t believe that anything good and durable can be constructed on this earth of ours. How can I set about advising you when I can’t disentangle myself from my own doubts?”

  Icily calm, Gerasimovich reminded him of Auguste Comte’s assertion, before spectral analysis was invented, that mankind would never discover the chemical composition of the stars. Which they promptly did!

  “When you stride along in the exercise yard with your army coat flapping,” he said, “you seem quite different.”

  Nerzhin hesitated. He remembered what Spiridon had said yesterday—“Killing wolves is right, eating people isn’t”—and Spiridon asking an airplane to drop an atom bomb on him. His naive wisdom could be overpowering, but Nerzhin resisted it as best he could.

  “Well, I get carried away sometimes. But your plan requires serious thought, and I can’t express myself fully all at once. Do you remember Anatole France’s story about the old woman of Syracuse? She prayed to the gods to grant the island’s hated tyrant a long life, because experience had taught her of old that each successive tyrant was more cruel than his predecessor. Yes, our present regime is vile, but how can you be sure that what you want will be any better? Maybe it will be worse. No, you say, just because you want it to be better. But maybe those before you wanted things to be better. They sowed rye, and what came up was goosefoot. Forget about our Revolution! You can look back . . . twenty-seven centuries! Over all those twists and turns in the meaningless journey, from the hill where the she-wolf suckled the twins, from the valley of olives where the wonder-working dreamer rode on an ass, to our own thrilling heights, our own grim gorges, through which only self-propelled cannons grind their way in single file, to our icy mountain passes where, at seventy degrees below, the freezing wind of Oymyakon blows through convicts’ jackets. I can’t see why we’ve struggled all this way, shoving one another over precipices. Poets and prophets have hymned through the centuries the shining heights of the future. Fanatics that they are, have they forgotten that on the heights hurricanes howl, vegetation is sparse, there is no water, and you can easily fall and break your neck? Shine a light, and you can see right here what may be the Castle of the Holy Grail.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “Where a knight galloped up and beheld . . . nonsense! Nobody will ever gallop up; nobody will behold anything! Give me my modest little valley where there’s grass and water.”

  “Back to the past?” Gerasimovich rapped out.

  “If only I believed that there is any backward and forward in human history! It’s like an octopus, with neither back nor front. For me there’s no word so devoid of meaning as ‘progress.’ What progress, Illarion Palych? Progress from what? To what? In those twenty-seven centuries, have people become better? kinder? or at least a bit happier? No, they’ve become worse, nastier, and unhappier! And all this thanks to beautiful ideas!”

  “No progress? No progress?” Gerasimovich protested, forgetting the need for caution and sounding younger than his years. “That’s unforgivable in a man who’s had something to do with physics. Do you see no difference between mechanical and electromagnetic speed?”

  “What makes you think I need airplanes? There’s no healthier way to travel than on foot or on horseback! What do I need radio for? To murder the playing of great pianists? Or to send the order for my arrest to Siberia more quickly? Let them send it by post chaise.”

  “You must surely realize that energy will soon cost little or nothing, which means abundance of material goods. We will unfreeze the Arctic, warm Siberia, make the deserts green. In twenty or thirty years’ time, foodstuffs will be as free as the air we breathe. Isn’t that progress?�
��

  “Plenty doesn’t mean progress! My idea of progress is not material abundance but a general willingness to share things in short supply! But you won’t achieve any of that anyway! You won’t warm Siberia! You won’t make the deserts bloom! It’ll all be blown to bloody hell by atom bombs! And scattered to the winds by jet planes!”

  “Try to look at it objectively . . . it hasn’t all been mistakes—we have crept slowly upward. We have bloodied our tender mugs on jagged rocks, but nonetheless we are now at the head of the pass. . . .”

  “On Oymyakon!”

  “Well, we aren’t burning one another at the stake anymore.”

  “Why bother with firewood when you’ve got gas chambers?”

  “Still, the times when the folk meeting settled disputes with the cudgel have gone, and we have parliaments, in which reasoned argument prevails instead! Quite primitive people, after all, won the habeas corpus act! And nobody orders us to consign our wives to the overlord on our wedding night. You have to be blind not to see that manners are becoming gentler, that reason is prevailing over unreason. . . .”

  “I don’t see it!”

  “That our conception of what it means to be human is maturing!”

  A prolonged ring from an electric bell sounded throughout the building. This meant that it was 10:45, that all secret material should be handed in to be locked away and the laboratories sealed.

  Both men raised their heads into the faint lamplight from the prison grounds.

  Gerasimovich’s pince-nez glittered like two diamonds.

  “So, then, what’s your conclusion? Should we just let the planet rot? Don’t you think that would be a pity?”

  “It would be a pity,” Nerzhin whispered faintly, though there was no need to whisper now. “I feel sorry for our planet. Better to die than live to see that.”

  “Better to prevent it than to die,” Gerasimovich answered calmly. “But in these crucial years of universal destruction or universal correction of mistakes, what other way out do you suggest? Front-line officer! Veteran jailbird!”

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t know.”

  In the quarter light Nerzhin’s distress was evident.

  “Before the atom bomb, the Soviet system, the ramshackle, hidebound, vermin-ridden Soviet system was doomed; it could not have stood the test of time. But if our side gets the bomb, it’s disaster. There is just one possibility—”

  “What?” Gerasimovich pressed him.

  “Perhaps . . . the new age . . . with its globalized information. . . .”

  “You’re the one who said you didn’t need radio!”

  “No . . . they can jam it. I’m saying that maybe in the new age a new means will be discovered for the Word to shatter concrete.”

  “Completely contradicts the laws of resistance of materials.”

  “Not to mention dialectical materialism. So what? Remember ‘In the Beginning was the Word.’ So the Word is more ancient than concrete. The Word is not to be taken lightly. Whereas your military coup is . . . just impossible.”

  “But in practical terms how do you envisage it?”

  “I don’t know. I repeat—I don’t know. It’s a mystery. Mushrooms, mysteriously, may not appear after the first or second shower, but sooner or later rain brings them out in profusion. Only yesterday we could never have believed that such monsters could emerge at all, but now they are everywhere. In just the same way, noble people will suddenly spring up, and their word will shatter concrete.”

  “Before that happens, your noble people will be carried away in hampers and baskets—weeded out, chopped up, short of a head. . . .”

  Chapter 91

  Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

  IN SPITE OF HIS FEARS AND FOREBODINGS, Monday was going well. Innokenty felt some lingering anxiety, but by early afternoon he had regained his equilibrium, and he did not lose it again. It was imperative now to take refuge in a theater for the evening so that he could stop fearing every ring at the door.

  But the phone rang. It was almost theater time, and Dotty was just emerging from the bathroom.

  Innokenty stood staring at the telephone, like a dog at a hedgehog.

  “Dotty, answer the phone! I’m not in, and you don’t know when I’ll be back. They’ll ruin our evening, damn them!”

  Dotty had become even prettier since yesterday. She always became prettier when she was admired, and then she was admired even more and became prettier still.

  Holding the skirts of her dressing gown together with one hand, she padded over to the telephone and gently but firmly picked up the receiver.

  “Yes? . . . He’s not at home. . . . Who, who?” Suddenly she was all affability; that little lift of the shoulders was always a sign of eagerness to please. “Good evening, Comrade General! Yes, I’ll find out right away. . . .” She quickly covered the phone with her hand and whispered, “The Boss! Sounds very friendly.”

  Innokenty wavered. The Boss, sounding friendly, calling in person, in the evening. . . . His wife noticed his indecision.

  “Just a minute, I can hear the door opening; it could be him. Yes, it is! Ini! Don’t stop to take your coat off; come quickly; the general’s on the phone!”

  However incorrigibly suspicious-minded the person at the other end of the telephone might be, from the tone of Dotty’s voice he could almost see Innokenty hurriedly wiping his feet at the door, crossing the carpeted floor, and taking the receiver.

  The Boss was in a good mood. His message was that Innokenty’s posting had just been finally confirmed. He would fly out on Wednesday, changing planes in Paris. He was to hand over the last of his current work tomorrow and come along for half an hour right now to clear up one or two details. A car had already been sent for him.

  Innokenty straightened up from the telephone a different man. He took such a deep breath in his happiness that the air seemed to have time to permeate his whole body. He breathed out slowly and, with the air, expelled his doubts and fears.

  Incredible!

  He had walked the tightrope in a crosswind without falling!

  “Just imagine, Dotty, I’m flying on Wednesday! And right now. . . .”

  Dotty, with one ear to the receiver, had heard it all for herself. But as she straightened up, she was obviously far from happy. Innokenty’s departure alone, explicable and acceptable the day before yesterday, was hurtful and humiliating today.

  “Do you think,” she said, looking sulky, “the one or two details might possibly include me?”

  “Yes . . . well . . . m-m-maybe.”

  “What did you tell them about me, anyway?”

  Well, he had said something. Said something he couldn’t now repeat to her, and it was too late now to play it differently.

  But with the confidence she had gained yesterday, Dotty was able to speak freely.

  “Ini, we’ve always made our discoveries together! We’ve always shared new experiences! You wouldn’t go to see the Yellow Devil without me, would you? No, I simply can’t accept it; you’ve got to think about the two of us!”

  This was nothing compared to what she could come out with later. In the presence of foreigners, she would be repeating the most stupidly orthodox banalities, which would make Innokenty’s ears burn. She would be vilifying America and buying everything she could lay her hands on there. But he was forgetting. It wouldn’t be like that. He would come clean once he got there—and how much of it would she be capable of understanding?

  “It will all work out, Dotty, but it takes time. Right now I have to go and present myself, complete the formalities, get to know people—”

  “But I want to go right away! Right now is when I want to go! I can’t be left behind!”

  She did not know what she would be letting herself in for. She did not know what it was like having a twisted, round rope under slippery soles. And now he would have to spring from his perch and fly through the air, perhaps without a safety net. A second body, plump and soft and unused to
hardship, could not fly beside him.

  Innokenty smiled nicely and shook his wife gently by her shoulders.

  “Well, I’ll try. It isn’t what was agreed before, but let’s see how it goes now. In any case, you needn’t worry. I will send for you very soon. . . .”

  He kissed an unresponsive cheek. Dotty was not at all convinced. The harmony established yesterday was forgotten.

  “Anyway, get dressed now—no need to hurry. We will miss the first act, but that won’t spoil the whole thing. . . . We’ll get there for Act Two. . . . Anyway I’ll give you a tinkle from the ministry.”

  He scarcely had time to don his uniform before the driver rang the doorbell. It was neither Viktor, who usually drove him, nor Kostya. This driver was a lean, lively fellow with a pleasant, intelligent face. He went down the stairs jauntily, almost side by side with Innokenty, twirling the ignition key on its cord.

  “I don’t remember seeing you before,” Innokenty said, buttoning his overcoat as he went.

  “I even remember your stairway; I’ve picked you up twice before.”

  The driver’s smile was genuine but vaguely mischievous. It would be good to have a bright fellow like this driving your own car.

  They drove off. Innokenty had taken the rear seat. The driver twice tried to make a joke over his shoulder, but Innokenty wasn’t listening. Suddenly the car swerved sharply and pulled up flush with the pavement. A young man wearing a soft hat and an overcoat pinched in at the waist was standing at the curb with his finger raised.

  “A mechanic, from our garage,” the amiable driver explained, and made as if to open the right-hand front door. But the door simply refused to open; the lock was jammed.

  The driver swore without exceeding the limits of urban decency and said, “Comrade Counselor! Could he possibly sit next to you? It’s a bit awkward, because he’s my boss.”