The toothache lessened and remained within bearable limits. Rubashov hoped the abscess in the root had opened by itself.
Three days later he was brought up for examination for the first time.
14
It was eleven o’clock in the morning when they came to fetch him.
By the warder’s solemn expression, Rubashov guessed at once where they were going.
He followed the warder, with the serene nonchalance which had always come to him in moments of danger, as an unexpected gift of mercy. They went the same way as three days ago when going to the doctor.
The concrete door again opened and crashed shut; strange, thought Rubashov, how quickly one grows used to an intense environment; he felt as if he had been breathing the air of this corridor for years, as if the stale atmosphere of all the prisons he had known had been stored away here.
They passed the barber’s shop and the doctor’s door which was shut; three prisoners stood outside, guarded by a sleepy warder, waiting their turn.
Beyond the doctor’s door was new ground for Rubashov.
They passed a spiral staircase leading down into the depths.
What was down there—store-rooms, punishment cells?
Rubashov tried to guess, with the interest of the expert.
He did not like the look of that staircase.
They crossed a narrow, windowless courtyard; it was a blind shaft, rather dark, but over it hung the open sky. On the other side of the courtyard the corridors were brighter; the doors were no longer of concrete, but of painted wood, with brass handles; busy officials passed them; behind a door a wireless was playing, behind another one heard a typewriter.
They were in the administrative department.
They stopped at the last door, at the end of the corridor; the warder knocked.
Inside someone was telephoning; a quiet voice called out:
“A minute, please,” and went on patiently saying
“Yes” and
“Quite” into the receiver.
The voice seemed familiar to Rubashov, but he could not place it.
It was an agreeably masculine voice, slightly husky; he had certainly heard it somewhere before.
“Come in,” said the voice; the warder opened the door and shut it immediately behind Rubashov.
Rubashov saw a desk; behind it sat his old college friend and former battalion commander, Ivanov; he was looking at him smilingly while putting back the receiver.
“So here we are again,” said Ivanov.
Rubashov still stood at the door.
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said drily. “Sit down,” said Ivanov with a polite gesture. He had risen; standing, he was half a head taller than Rubashov. He looked at him smilingly.
They both sat down—Ivanov behind the desk, Rubashov in front of it. They stared at each other for some time and with unrestrained curiosity—Ivanov with his almost tender smile, Rubashov expectant and watchful.
His glance slid to Ivanov’s right leg under the table.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Ivanov.
“Artificial leg with automatic joints and rustless chromium-plating; I can swim, ride, drive a car and dance.
Will you have a cigarette?”
He held out a wooden cigarette case to Rubashov.
Rubashov looked at the cigarettes and thought of his first visit to the military hospital after Ivanov’s leg had been amputated.
Ivanov had asked him to procure veronal for him, and in a discussion which lasted the whole afternoon, had tried to prove that every man had a right to suicide.
Rubashov had finally asked for time to reflect, and had in the same night been transferred to another sector of the front.
It was only years later that he had met Ivanov again.
He looked at the cigarettes in the wooden case.
They were hand-made, of loose, blonde American tobacco.
“Is this still an unofficial prelude, or have the hostilities started?” asked Rubashov. “In the latter case, I won’t have one. You know the etiquette.”
“Rubbish,” said Ivanov.
“Well then, rubbish,” said Rubashov and lit one of Ivanov’s cigarettes. He inhaled deeply, trying not to let his enjoyment be seen.
“And how is the rheumatism in your shoulders?” he asked.
“All right, thank you,” said Ivanov, “and how is your burn?”
He smiled and pointed innocently at Rubashov’s left hand.
On the back of the hand, between the bluish veins, in the place where three days ago he had stubbed out his cigarette, was a blister the size of a copper coin.
For a minute both looked at Rubashov’s hand lying in his lap.
How does he know that? thought Rubashov.
He has had me spied on.
He felt more shame than anger; he took one last deep pull at his cigarette and threw it away.