In Gletkin, too, a certain change occurred during this unbroken chain of days and nights. It was not much, but Rubashov’s feverish eyes did not miss it. Until the end Gletkin sat stiffly with unmoved face and creaking cuffs in the shadow of his lamp behind the desk; but gradually, bit by bit, the brutality faded from his voice, in the same way as, bit by bit, he had turned down the shrill light of the lamp, until it had become nearly normal. He never smiled, and Rubashov wondered whether the Neanderthalers were capable of smiling at all; neither was his voice supple enough to express any shades of feeling. But once, when Rubashov’s cigarettes ran out after a dialogue of several hours, Gletkin, who did not smoke himself, took a packet out of his pocket and passed it over the desk to Rubashov.
In one point Rubashov even managed to achieve a victory; that was the point in the accusation concerning his alleged sabotage in the aluminum trust. It was a charge which did not weigh much in the sum total of the crimes to which he had already confessed, but Rubashov fought it with the same obstinacy as on the decisive points. They sat opposite each other nearly the whole night. Rubashov had refuted point for point all incriminating evidence and one-sided statistics; in a voice thick with tiredness, he had cited figures and dates, which as by miracle came up at the right moment in his numbed head; and all the time Gletkin had not been able to find the starting point from which he could unroll the logical chain. For at their second or third meeting already, as it were, an unspoken agreement had come into existence between them: if Gletkin could prove that the root of charge was right—even when this root was only of a logical, abstract nature—he had a free hand to insert the missing details; “to dot the i’s”, as Rubashov called it. Without becoming aware of it, they had got accustomed to these rules for their game, and neither of them distinguished any longer between actions which Rubashov had committed in fact and those which he merely should have committed as a consequence of his opinions; they had gradually lost the sense of appearance and reality, logical fiction and fact. Rubashov would occasionally become conscious of this in his rare moments of clearheadedness, and he would then have the sensation of awakening from a strange state of intoxication; Gletkin, on the other hand, seemed never to be aware of it.
Towards morning, when Rubashov still had not given in over the question of sabotage in the aluminum trust, Gletkin’s voice acquired an undertone of nervousness—just as in the beginning, when Hare-lip had brought out the wrong answer. He turned the lamp on more sharply, which had not happened for a long time; but he turned it down again when he saw Rubashov’s ironic smile. He put a few more questions, which had no effect, and said conclusively:
“So you definitely deny having committed any wrecking or subversive acts in the industry entrusted to you—or to have even planned such acts?”
Rubashov nodded—with a sleepy curiosity as to what would happen. Gletkin turned to the stenographer:
“Write: the examining magistrate recommends that this charge be dropped for lack of evidence.”
Rubashov quickly lit a cigarette to conceal the movement of childish triumph which overcame him. For the first time he had won a victory over Gletkin. Certainly it was a pathetic little local victory in a lost battle, but yet a victory; and it had been so many months, even years, since he had last known this feeling…. Gletkin took the day’s record from the secretary and dismissed her, according to the ritual which had latterly developed between them.
When they were alone, and Rubashov had stood up to sign the protocol, Gletkin said, passing him his fountain pen:
“Industrial sabotage is, according to experience, the most effective means for the opposition to create difficulties for the Government, and to produce discontent amongst the workers. Why do you so stubbornly maintain that you did not use—or intend to use—just this method?”
“Because it is a technical absurdity,” said Rubashov. “And this perpetual harping on the saboteur as a bogyman produces an epidemic of denunciation which revolts me.”
The long-missed sensation of triumph caused Rubashov to feel fresher and speak louder than usual.
“If you hold sabotage for a mere fiction, what, in your opinion, are the real causes of the unsatisfactory state of our industries?”
“Too low piece-work tariffs, slave-driving and barbaric disciplinary measures,” said Rubashov. “I know of several cases in my Trust in which workers were shot as saboteurs because of some trifling negligence caused by over-tiredness. If a man is two minutes late at clocking-in, he is fired, and a stamp is put in his identity-papers which makes it impossible for him to find work elsewhere.”
Gletkin looked at Rubashov with his usual expressionless gaze, and asked him, in his usual expressionless voice:
“Were you given a watch as a boy?”
Rubashov looked at him in astonishment. The most conspicuous trait of the Neanderthal character was its absolute humourlessness or, more exactly, its lack of frivolity.
“Don’t you want to answer my question?” asked Gletkin.
“Certainly,” said Rubashov, more and more astonished.
“How old were you when the watch was given you?”
“I don’t quite know,” said Rubashov; “eight or nine probably.”
“I,” said Gletkin in his usual correct voice, “was sixteen years old when I learnt that the hour was divided into minutes. In my village, when the peasants had to travel to town, they would go to the railway station at sunrise and lie down to sleep in the waiting-room until the train came, which was usually at about midday; sometimes it only came in the evening or next morning. These are the peasants who now work in our factories. For example, in my village is now the biggest steel-rail factory in the world. In the first year, the foremen would lie down to sleep between two emptyings of the blast furnace, until they were shot. In all other countries, the peasants had one or two hundred years to develop the habit of industrial precision and of the handling of machines. Here they only had ten years. If we didn’t sack them and shoot them for every trifle, the whole country would come to a standstill, and the peasants would lie down to sleep in the factory yards until grass grew out of the chimneys and everything became as it was before. Last year a women’s delegation came to us from Manchester in England. They were shown everything, and afterwards they wrote indignant articles, saying that the textile workers in Manchester would never stand such treatment. I have read that the cotton industry in Manchester is two hundred years old. I have also read, what the treatment of the workers there was like two hundred years ago, when it started. You, Comrade Rubashov, have just used the same arguments as this women’s delegation from Manchester. You, of course, know better than these women. So one may wonder at your using the same arguments. But then, you have something in common with them: you were given a watch as a child….”
Rubashov said nothing and looked at Gletkin with a new interest. What was this? Was the Neanderthaler coming out of his shell? But Gletkin sat stiffly on his chair, as expressionless as ever.
“You may be right in some ways,” Rubashov said finally. “But it was you who started me off on this question. What use is it to invent scapegoats for difficulties, the natural causes of which you have just so convincingly described?”
“Experience teaches,” said Gletkin, “that the masses must be given for all difficult and complicated processes a simple, easily grasped explanation. According to what I know of history, I see that mankind could never do without scapegoats. I believe it was at all times an indispensable institution; your friend Ivanov taught me that it was of religious origin. As far as I remember, he explained that the word itself came from a custom of the Hebrews, who once a year sacrificed to their god a goat, laden with all their sins.” Gletkin paused and shoved his cuffs into place. “Besides, there are also examples in history of voluntary scapegoats. At the age when you were given a watch, I was being taught by the village priest that Jesus Christ called himself a lamb, which had taken on itself all sin. I have never understood in what way it cou
ld help mankind if someone declares he is being sacrificed for its sake. But for two thousand years people have apparently found it quite natural.”
Rubashov looked at Gletkin. What was he aiming at? What was the object of this conversation? In what labyrinth was the Neanderthaler straying?
“However that may be,” said Rubashov, “it would be more in accordance with our ideas to tell the people the truth, instead of populating the world with saboteurs and devils.”
“If one told the people in my village,” said Gletkin, “that they were still slow and backward in spite of the Revolution and the factories, it would have no effect on them. If one tells them that they are heroes of work, more efficient than the Americans, and that all evil only comes from devils and saboteurs, it has at least some effect. Truth is what is useful to humanity, falsehood what is harmful. In the outline of history published by the Party for the evening classes for adults, it is emphasized that during the first few centuries the Christian religion realized an objective progress for mankind. Whether Jesus spoke the truth or not, when he asserted he was the son of God and of a virgin, is of no interest to any sensible person. It is said to be symbolical, but the peasants take it literally. We have the same right to invent useful symbols which the peasants take literally.”
“Your reasoning,” said Rubashov, “sometimes reminds me of Ivanov’s.”
“Citizen Ivanov,” said Gletkin, “belonged, as you do, to the old intelligentsia; by conversing with him, one could acquire some of that historical knowledge which one had missed through insufficient schooling. The difference is that I try to use that knowledge in the service of the Party; but Citizen Ivanov was a cynic.”
“Was …?” asked Rubashov, taking off his pince-nez.
“Citizen Ivanov,” said Gletkin, looking at him with expressionless eyes, “was shot last night, in execution of an administrative decision.”
After this conversation, Gletkin let Rubashov sleep for two full hours. On the way back to his cell, Rubashov wondered why the news of Ivanov’s death had not made a deeper impression on him. It had merely caused the cheering effect of his little victory to vanish and made him tired and drowsy again. Apparently he had reached a state which precluded any deeper emotion. Anyhow, even before he had learnt of Ivanov’s death, he had been ashamed of that idle feeling of triumph. Gletkin’s personality had gained such power over him that even his triumphs were turned into defeats. Massive and expressionless, he sat there, the brutal embodiment of the State which owed its very existence to the Rubashovs and Ivanovs. Flesh of their flesh, grown independent and become insensible. Had not Gletkin acknowledged himself to be the spiritual heir of Ivanov and the old intelligentsia? Rubashov repeated to himself for the hundredth time that Gletkin and the new Neanderthalers were merely completing the work of the generation with the numbered heads. That the same doctrine became so inhuman in their mouths, had, as it were, merely climactic reasons. When Ivanov had used the same arguments, there was yet an undertone in his voice left by the past by the remembrance of a world which had vanished. One can deny one’s childhood, but not erase it. Ivanov had trailed his past after him to the end; that was what gave everything he said that undertone of frivolous melancholy; that was why Gletkin had called him a cynic. The Gletkins had nothing to erase; they need not deny their past, because they had none. They were born without umbilical cord, without frivolity, without melancholy.
5
Fragment of the Diary of N. S. Rubashov
“… With what right do we who are quitting the scene look down with such superiority on the Gletkins? There must have been laughter amidst the apes when the Neanderthaler first appeared on earth. The highly civilized apes swung gracefully from bough to bough; the Neanderthaler was uncouth and bound to the earth. The apes, saturated and peaceful, lived in sophisticated playfulness, or caught fleas in philosophic contemplation; the Neanderthaler trampled gloomily through the world, banging around with clubs. The apes looked down on him amusedly from their tree tops and threw nuts at him. Sometimes horror seized them; they ate fruits and tender plants with delicate refinement; the Neanderthaler devoured raw meat, he slaughtered animals and his fellows. He cut down trees which had always stood, moved rocks from their time-hallowed place, transgressed against every law and tradition of the jungle. He was uncouth, cruel, without animal dignity—from the point of view of the highly cultivated apes, a barbaric relapse of history. The last surviving chimpanzees still turn up their noses at the sight of a human being….”
6
After five or six days an incident occurred: Rubashov fainted during the examination. They had just arrived at the concluding point in the accusation: the question of the motive for Rubashov’s actions. The accusation defined the motive simply as “counter-revolutionary mentality”, and mentioned casually, as if it were self-evident, that he had been in the service of a hostile foreign Power. Rubashov fought his last battle against that formulation. The discussion had lasted from dawn to the middle of the morning, when Rubashov, at a quite undramatic moment, slid sideways from his chair and remained lying on the ground.
When he came to a few minutes later, he saw the little fluff-covered skull of the doctor over him, pouring water on his face out of a bottle, and rubbing his temples. Rubashov felt the doctor’s breath, which smelt of peppermint and bread-and-dripping, and was sick. The doctor scolded in his shrill voice, and advised that Rubashov should be taken into the fresh air for a minute. Gletkin had watched the scene with his expressionless eyes. He rang and ordered the carpet to be cleaned; then he let Rubashov be conducted back to his cell. A few minutes later, he was taken by the old warder into the yard for exercise.
For the first few minutes Rubashov was as if intoxicated by the biting fresh air. He discovered that he had lungs which drank in oxygen, as the palate a sweet refreshing drink. The sun shone pale and clear; it was just eleven in the morning—the hour at which he always used to be taken for his walk an immeasurable time ago, before this long, hazy row of days and nights had started. What a fool he had been not to appreciate this blessing. Why could one not just live and breathe and walk through the snow and feel the pale warmth of the sun on one’s face? Shake off the nightmare of Gletkin’s room, the glaring light of the lamp, that whole ghostly mise en scène—and live as other people do?
As it was the usual hour for his exercise, he again had the thin peasant with the bast-shoes as neighbour in the roundabout. He watched sideways as Rubashov walked along beside him with slightly swaying steps, cleared his throat once or twice, and said, with a glance at the warders:
“I have not seen you for a long time, your honour. You look ill, as though you won’t last much longer. They say there will be a war.”
Rubashov said nothing. He resisted the temptation to pick up a handful of snow and press it to a ball in his hand. The circle moved slowly round the yard. Twenty paces ahead the next pair stamped along between the low banks of snow—two men of about the same height in grey coats, with little clouds of steam in front of their mouths.
“It will soon be sowing time,” said the peasant. “After the melting of the snows the sheep go into the hills. It takes three days until they are up there. Before, all the villages in the district sent their sheep on the journey the same day. At sunrise it started, sheep everywhere, on all paths and fields, the whole village accompanied the herds during the first day. You have perhaps in all your life never seen so many sheep, your honour, and so many dogs and so much dust and such barking and bleating…. Mother of God, what merriment it was….”
Rubashov held his face lifted to the sun; the sun was still pale, but already it lent the air a tepid softness. He watched the gliding, swerving play of the birds, high above the machine-gun turret.
The peasant’s whining voice went on:
” A day like to-day, when one smells the melting of the snow in the air, takes hold of me. We will neither of us last much longer, your honour. They have crushed us because we are reactionaries, and be
cause the old days when we were happy must not come back….”
“Were you really so happy in those days?” asked Rubashov; but the peasant only murmured something unintelligible, while his Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat several times. Rubashov watched him from the side; after a time he said:
“Do you remember the part in the Bible where the tribes in the desert begin to cry: Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt”?
The peasant nodded eagerly and uncomprehendingly…. Then they were conducted back into the building.
The effect of the fresh air vanished, the leaden drowsiness, the giddiness and nausea returned. At the entrance Rubashov bent down, picked up a handful of snow, and rubbed it on his forehead and burning eyes.
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