For us the question of subjective good faith is of no interest.
He who is in the wrong must pay; he who is in the right will be absolved.
That Is the law of historical credit; it was our law.
“History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth, for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for forty years before each step In his development.
And he has to be driven through the desert with threats and promises, by imaginary terrors and imaginary consolations, so that he should not sit down prematurely to rest and divert himself by worshipping golden calves.
“We have learnt history more thoroughly than the others.
We differ from all others in our logical consistency.
We know that virtue does not matter to history, and that crimes remain unpunished; but that every error had its consequences and venges itself unto the seventh generation.
Therefore we concentrated all our efforts on preventing error and destroying the very seeds of it.
Never in history has so much power over the future of humanity been concentrated in so few hands as in our case.
Each wrong idea we follow is a crime committed against future generations.
Therefore we have to punish wrong ideas as others punish crimes: with death.
We were held for madmen because we followed every thought down to its final consequence and acted accordingly.
We were compared to the inquisition because, like them, we constantly felt in ourselves the whole weight of responsibility for the super-individual life to come.
We resembled the great Inquisitors in that we persecuted the seeds of evil not only in men’s deeds, but in their thoughts.
We admitted no private sphere, not even inside a man’s skull.
We lived under the compulsion of working things out to their final conclusions.
Our minds were so tensely charged that the slightest collision caused a mortal short-circuit.
Thus we were fated to mutual destruction.
“I was one of those.
I have thought and acted as I had to; I destroyed people whom I was fond of, and gave power to others I did not like.
History put me where I stood; I have exhausted the credit which she accorded me; if I was right I have nothing to repent of; if wrong, I will pay.
“But how can the present decide what will be judged truth in the future?
We are doing the work of prophets without their gift.
We replaced vision by logical deduction; but although we all started from the same point of departure, we came to divergent results.
Proof disproved proof, and finally we had to recur to faith—to axiomatic faith in the rightness of one’s own reasoning.
That is the crucial point.
We have thrown all ballast overboard; only one anchor holds us: faith in one’s self.
Geometry is the purest realization of human reason; but Euclid’s axioms cannot be proved.
He who does not believe in them sees the whole building crash.
“No. 1 has faith in himself, tough, slow, sullen and unshakable.
He has the most solid anchor-chain of all.
Mine has worn thin in the last few years. ...
“The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility.
That is why I am lost.”
2
The day after the first hearing of Rubashov, the Examining Magistrate Ivanov and his colleague Gletkin were sitting in the canteen after dinner.
Ivanov was tired; he had propped his artificial leg up on a second chair and undone the collar of his uniform.
He poured out some of the cheap wine which the canteen provided, and silently wondered at Gletkin, who sat straight up on his chair in his starched uniform, which creaked at every movement. He had not even taken off his revolver belt, although he must have been pretty tired, too.
Gletkin emptied his glass; the conspicuous scar on his clean-shaven head had reddened slightly.
Besides them, only three other officers were in the canteen at a distant table; two were playing chess, the third looking on.
“What is to happen about Rubashov?” asked Gletkin.
“He is in rather a bad way,” answered Ivanov. “But he is still as logical as ever.
So he will capitulate.”
“That I don’t believe,” said Gletkin.
“He will,” said Ivanov.
“When he has thought out everything to its logical conclusion, he will capitulate.
Therefore the essential thing is to leave him in peace and not to disturb him.
I have allowed him paper, pencil and cigarettes—to accelerate the process of thought.”
“I consider that wrong,” said Gletkin.