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 an agent 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.