MICHAEL BOGROV, FORMER SAILOR ON BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, COMMANDER OF THE EASTERN FLEET, BEARER OF THE FIRST REVOLUTIONARY ORDER, LED TO EXECUTION.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, was sick into the bucket and ended his sentence:
PASS IT ON.
He could not call back to his memory the visual image of Bogrov, but he saw the outlines of his gigantic figure, his awkward, trailing arms, the freckles on his broad, flat face with the slightly turned-up nose. They had been roommates in exile after 1905; Rubashov had taught him reading, writing and the fundamentals of historical thought; since then, wherever Rubashov might happen to be, he received twice a year a hand-written letter, ending invariably with the words: “Your comrade, faithful unto the grave, Bogrov.”
THEY ARE COMING, tapped No. 402 hastily, and so loudly that Rubashov, who was still standing next to the bucket with his head leaning against the wall, heard it across the cell! STAND AT THE SPY-HOLE. DRUM. PASS IT ON.
Rubashov stiffened. He tapped the message through to No. 406: STAND AT THE SPY-HOLE. DRUM. PASS IT ON. He pattered through the dark to the cell door and waited. All was silent as before.
In a few seconds there came again the ticking in the wall: NOW.
Along the corridor came the low, hollow sound of subdued drumming. It was not tapping nor hammering: the men in the cells 380 to 402, who formed the acoustic chain and stood behind their doors like a guard of honour in the dark, brought out with deceptive resemblance the muffled, solemn sound of a roll of drums, carried by the wind from the distance. Rubashov stood with his eyes pressed to the spy-hole, and joined the chorus by beating with both hands rhythmically against the concrete door. To his astonishment, the stifled wave was carried on to the right, through No. 406 and beyond; Rip Van Winkle must have understood after all; he too was drumming. At the same time Rubashov heard to his left, at some distance still from the limits of his range of vision, the grinding of iron doors being rolled back on their slidings. The drumming to his left became slightly louder; Rubashov knew that the iron door which separated the isolation cells from the ordinary ones, had been opened. A bunch of keys jangled, now the iron door was shut again; now he heard the approach of steps, accompanied by sliding and slipping noises on the tiles. The drumming to the left rose in a wave, a steady, muffled crescendo. Rubashov’s field of vision, limited by cells No. 401 and 407, was still empty. The sliding and squealing sounds approached quickly, now he distinguished also a moaning and whimpering, like the whimpering of a child. The steps quickened, the drumming to the left faded slightly, to the right it swelled.
Rubashov drummed. He gradually lost the sense of time and space, he heard only the hollow beatings as of jungle tom-toms; it might have been apes that stood behind the bars of their cages, beating their chests and drumming; he pressed his eye to the judas, rising and falling rhythmically on his toes as he drummed. As before, he saw only the stale, yellowish light of the electric bulb in the corridor; there was nothing to be seen save the iron doors of Nos. 401 to 407, but the roll of drums rose, and the creaking and whimpering approached. Suddenly shadowy figures entered his field of vision: they were there. Rubashov ceased to drum and stared. A second later they had passed.
What he had seen in these few seconds, remained branded on Rubashov’s memory. Two dimly lit figures had walked past, both in uniform, big and indistinct, dragging between them a third, whom they held under the arms. The middle figure hung slack and yet with doll-like stiffness from their grasp, stretched out at length, face turned to the ground, belly arched downwards. The legs trailed after, the shoes skated along on the toes, producing the squealing sound which Rubashov had heard from the distance. Whitish strands of hair hung over the face turned towards the tiles, with mouth wide open. Drops of sweat clung to it; out of the mouth spittle ran thinly down the chin. When they had dragged him out of Rubashov’s field of vision, further to the right and down the corridor, the moaning and whimpering gradually faded away; it came to him only as a distant echo, consisting of three plaintive vowels: “u-a-o”. But before they had turned the corner at the end of the corridor, by the barber’s shop, Bogrov bellowed out loudly twice, and this time Rubashov heard not only the vowels, but the whole word; it was his own name, he heard it clearly: Ru-ba-shov.
Then, as if at a signal, silence fell. The electric lamps were burning as usual, the corridor was empty as usual. Only in the wall No. 406 was ticking:
ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.
Rubashov was lying on his bunk again, without knowing how he had got there. He still had the drumming in his ears, but the silence was now a true silence, empty and relaxed. No. 402 was presumably asleep. Bogrov, or what had remained of him, was presumably dead by now.
“Rubashov, Rubashov….” That last cry was branded ineffaceably in his acoustic memory. The optic image was less sharp. It was still difficult for him to identify with Bogrov that doll-like figure with wet face and stiff, trailing legs, which had been dragged through his field of vision in those few seconds. Only now did the white hair occur to him. What had they done to Bogrov? What had they done to this sturdy sailor, to draw this childish whimpering from his throat? Had Arlova whimpered in the same way when she was dragged along the corridor?
Rubashov sat up and leant his forehead against the wall behind which No. 402 slept; he was afraid he was going to be sick again. Up till now, he had never imagined Arlova’s death in such detail. It had always been for him an abstract occurrence; it had left him with a feeling of strong uneasiness, but he had never doubted the logical Tightness of his behaviour. Now, in the nausea which turned his stomach and drove the wet perspiration from his forehead, his past mode of thought seemed lunacy. The whimpering of Bogrov unbalanced the logical equation. Up till now Arlova had been a factor in this equation, a small factor compared to what was at stake. But the equation no longer stood. The vision of Arlova’s legs in their high-heeled shoes trailing along the corridor upset the mathematical equilibrium. The unimportant factor had grown to the immeasurable, the absolute; Bogrov’s whining, the inhuman sound of the voice which had called out his name, the hollow beat of the drumming, filled his ears; they smothered the thin voice of reason, covered it as the surf covers the gurgling of the drowning.
Exhausted, Rubashov fell asleep, sitting—his head leaning against the wall, the pince-nez before his shut eyes.
7
He groaned in his sleep; the dream of his first arrest had come back; his hand, hanging slackly from the bed, strained for the sleeve of his dressing-gown; he waited for the blow to hit him at last, but it did not come.
Instead, he woke up, because the electric light in his cell was turned on suddenly. A figure stood next to his bed, looking at him. Rubashov could hardly have slept a quarter of an hour, but after that dream he always needed several minutes to find himself again. He blinked in the bright light, his mind worked laboriously through the habitual hypotheses, as though he were carrying out an unconscious ritual. He was in a cell; but not in the enemy country—that was only dreamed. So he was free—but the colour-print of No. 1 hanging over his bed was lacking, and over there stood the bucket. Besides Ivanov was standing at his bedside and blowing cigarette smoke into his face. Was that also dreamed? No, Ivanov was real, the bucket was real. He was in his own country, but it had become an enemy country; and Ivanov, who had been his friend, had now also become an enemy; and the whimpering of Arlova was not a dream either. But no, it had not been Arlova, but Bogrov, who had been dragged past like a wax-doll; Comrade Bogrov, faithful unto the grave; and he had called out his name; that was not dreamed. Arlova, on the other hand, had said: “You can do whatever you like with me….”
“Do you feel ill?” asked Ivanov.
Rubashov blinked at him, blinded by the light. “Give me my dressing-gown,” he said.
Ivanov watched him. The right side of Rubashov’s face was swollen. “Would you like some brandy?” Ivanov asked. Without waiting for a reply, he hobbled to the spy-hole and called
out something in the corridor. Rubashov’s eyes followed him, blinking. His dazedness would not go. He was awake, but he saw, heard and thought in a mist.
“Have you been arrested too?” he asked.
“No,” said Ivanov quietly. “I only came to visit you. I think you have a temperature.”
“Give me a cigarette,” said Rubashov. He inhaled deeply once or twice, and his gaze became clearer. He lay down again, smoking, and looked at the ceiling. The cell door opened; the warder brought a bottle of brandy and a glass. This time it was not the old man, but a lean youth in uniform, with steel-rimmed spectacles. He saluted Ivanov, handed the brandy and glass over to him and shut the door from outside. One heard his steps receding down the corridor.
Ivanov sat down on the edge of Rubashov’s bunk and filled the glass. “Drink,” he said. Rubashov emptied the glass. The mistiness in his head cleared, events and persons—his first and second imprisonment, Arlova, Bogrov, Ivanov—arranged themselves in time and space.
“Are you in pain?” asked Ivanov.
“No,” said Rubashov. The only thing he did not yet understand was what Ivanov was doing in his cell.
“Your cheek is badly swollen. Probably you also have a temperature.”
Rubashov stood up from the bunk, looked through the spy-hole into the corridor, which was empty, and walked up and down the cell once or twice until his head became quite clear. Then he stopped in front of Ivanov, who was sitting on the end of the bunk, patiently blowing smoke-rings.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I want to talk to you,” Ivanov said. “Lie down again and drink some more brandy.”
Rubashov blinked at him ironically through his pincenez. “Until now,” he said, “I was tempted to believe you were acting in good faith. Now I see that you are a swine. Get out of here.”
Ivanov did not move. “Be good enough to give the reasons for this assertion,” he said.
Rubashov leaned his back against the wall of No. 406 and looked down at Ivanov. Ivanov was smoking with equanimity.
“Point one,” said Rubashov. “You knew of my friendship with Bogrov. Therefore you take care that Bogrov—or what was left of him—is taken past my cell on his last journey, as a reminder. To make sure that I do not miss this scene, Bogrov’s execution is discreetly announced beforehand, on the assumption that this news will be tapped through to me by my neighbours, which, in fact, happens. A further finesse of the producer’s is to inform Bogrov of my presence here, just before he is dragged off—on the further assumption that this final shock will draw from him some audible manifestation; which also happens. The whole thing is calculated to put me into a state of depression. In this darkest hour, Comrade Ivanov appears as a saviour, with a bottle of brandy under his arm. Follows a touching scene of reconciliation, we fall into each other’s arms, exchange moving war memories and incidentally sign the statement with my confession. Whereupon the prisoner sinks into a gentle slumber; Comrade Ivanov leaves on the tip of his toes with the statement in his pocket, and is promoted a few days later…. Now have the goodness to get out of here.”
Ivanov did not move. He blew smoke into the air, smiled and showed his gold teeth. “Do you really think I have such a primitive mind?” he asked. “Or, to be more exact: do you really believe I am such a bad psychologist?”
Rubashov shrugged. “Your tricks disgust me,” he said. “I cannot throw you out. If you have a trace of decency left in you, you will now leave me alone. You can’t imagine how you all disgust me.”
Ivanov lifted the glass from the floor, filled it and drank it. “I propose the following agreement,” he said. “You let me speak for five minutes without interrupting me, and listen with a clear head to what I am saying. If after that you still insist on my going—I will go.”
“I’m listening,” said Rubashov. He stood leaning against the wall opposite Ivanov and glanced at his watch.
“In the first place,” said Ivanov, “in order to remove any possible doubts or illusions you may have: Bogrov has in fact been shot. Secondly, he has been in prison for several months, and at the end was tortured for several days. If you mention this during the public trial, or even as much as tap it through to your neighbours, I am done for. About the reasons for treating Bogrov like that, we will speak later. Thirdly, it was intentional that he was taken past your cell, and intentional that he was told of your presence here. Fourthly, this filthy trick, as you call it, was not arranged by me, but by my colleague Gletkin, against my express instructions.”
He paused. Rubashov stood leaning against the wall and said nothing.
“I should never have made such a mistake,” Ivanov went on; “not out of any regard for your feelings, but because it is contrary to my tactics and to my knowledge of your psychology. You have recently shown a tendency to humanitarian scruples and other sentimentalities of that sort. Besides, the story of Arlova still lies on your stomach. The scene with Bogrov must only intensify your depression and moralistic leanings—that could be foreseen; only a bungler in psychology like Gletkin could have made such a mistake. Gletkin has been dinning into my ears for the last ten days that we should use ‘hard methods’ on you. For one thing, he doesn’t like you because you showed him the holes in your socks; for another, he is used to dealing with peasants…. So much for the elucidation of the affair with Bogrov. The brandy, of course, I ordered because you were not in full possession of your wits when I came in. It is not in my interest to make you drunk. It is not in my interest to lay you open to mental shocks. All that only drives you further into your moral exaltation. I need you sober and logical. My only interest is that you should calmly think your case to a conclusion. For, when you have thought the whole thing to a conclusion—then, and only then, will you capitulate….”
Rubashov shrugged his shoulders; but before he could say anything, Ivanov cut in:
“I know you are convinced that you won’t capitulate. Answer me only one thing: if you became convinced of the logical necessity and the objective Tightness of capitulating—would you then do it?”
Rubashov did not answer at once. He felt dully that the conversation had taken a turn which he should not have allowed. The five minutes had passed, and he had not thrown out Ivanov. That alone, it seemed to him, was a betrayal of Bogrov—and of Arlova; and of Richard and Little Loewy.
“Go away,” he said to Ivanov. “It’s no use.” He noticed only now that he had for some time been walking up and down his cell in front of Ivanov.
Ivanov was sitting on the bunk. “By the tone of your voice, I notice,” he said, “that you recognize your mistake concerning my part in the Bogrov affair. Why, then, do you want me to go? Why don’t you answer the question I asked?…” He bent forward a little and looked Rubashov mockingly in the face; then he said slowly, emphasizing each word: “Because you are afraid of me. Because my way of thinking and of arguing is your own, and you are afraid of the echo in your own head. In a moment you will be calling out: Get thee behind me, Satan….”
Rubashov did not answer. He was walking to and fro by the window, in front of Ivanov. He felt helpless and incapable of clear argument. His consciousness of guilt, which Ivanov called “moral exaltation”; could not be expressed in logical formula—it lay in the realm of the “grammatical fiction”. At the same time, every sentence spoken by Ivanov did in fact evoke an echo in him. He felt he ought never to have let himself be drawn into this discussion. He felt as if he were on a smooth, slanting plane, down which one slid irresistibly.
“Apage Satanas!” repeated Ivanov and poured himself out another glass. “In the old days, temptation was of carnal nature. Now it takes the form of pure reason. The values change. I would like to write a Passion play in which God and the Devil dispute for the soul of Saint Rubashov. After a life of sin, he has turned to God—to a God with the double chin of industrial liberalism and the charity of the Salvation Army soups. Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic.
He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn no to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it—an abstract and geometric love. Apage Satanás! Comrade Rubashov prefers to become a martyr. The columnists of the liberal Press, who hated him during his lifetime, will sanctify him after his death. He has discovered a conscience, and a conscience renders one as unfit for the revolution as a double chin. Conscience eats through the brain like a cancer, until the whole of the grey matter is devoured. Satan is beaten and withdraws—but don’t imagine that he grinds his teeth and spits fire in his fury. He shrugs his shoulders; he is thin and ascetic; he has seen many weaken and creep out of his ranks with pompous pretexts….”
Ivanov paused and poured himself another glass of brandy. Rubashov walked up and down in front of the window. After a while he said:
“Why did you execute Bogrov?”
“Why? Because of the submarine question,” said Ivanov. “It concerns the problem of tonnage—an old quarrel, the beginnings of which must be familiar to you.
“Bogrov advocated the construction of submarines of large tonnage and a long range of action. The Party is in favor of small submarines with a short range. You can build three times as many small submarines for your money as big ones. Both parties had valid technical arguments. The experts made a big display of technical sketches and algebraic formulae; but the actual problem lay in quite a different sphere. Big submarines mean: a policy of aggression, to further world revolution. Small submarines mean: coastal defense—that is, self-defense and postponement of world revolution. The latter is the point of view of No. 1, and the Party.