“In a word, I am the cynic and you are the moralist.”
Gletkin said nothing.
He sat stiffly on his chair in his starched uniform; his revolver belt smelled of fresh leather.
“Several years ago,” said Gletkin after a while, “a little peasant was brought to me to be cross-examined. It was in the provinces, at the time when we still believed in the flower-garden theory, as you call it. Cross-examinations were conducted in a very gentlemanly way.
The peasant had buried his crops; it was at the beginning of the collectivization of the land.
I kept strictly to the prescribed etiquette. I explained to him in a friendly way that we needed the corn to feed the growing city population and for export, in order to build up our industries; so would he please tell me where he had hidden his crops.
The peasant had his head drawn into his shoulders when he was brought into my room, expecting a beating. I knew his kind; I am myself country-born.
When, instead of beating him, I began to reason with him, to talk to him as an equal and call him ‘citizen,’ he took me for a half-wit. I saw it in his eyes.
I talked at him for half an hour.
He never opened his mouth and alternately picked his nose and his ears.
I went on talking, although I saw that he held the whole thing for a superb joke and was not listening at all.
Arguments simply did not penetrate his ears.
They were blocked up by the wax of centuries of patriarchal mental paralysis.
I held strictly to the regulations; it never even occurred to me that there were other methods. ...
“At that time I had twenty to thirty such cases daily.
My colleagues the same.
The Revolution was in danger of foundering on these little fat peasants.
The workers were undernourished; whole districts were ravaged by starvation typhus; we had no credit with which to build up our armament industry, and we were expecting to be attacked from month to month.
Two hundred millions in gold lay hidden in the woollen stockings of these fellows and half the crops were buried underground.
And, when cross-examining them, we addressed them as ‘citizen,’ while they blinked at us with their sly-stupid eyes, took it all for a superb joke and picked their noses.
“The third hearing of my man took place at two o’clock at night; I had previously worked for eighteen hours on end.
He had been woken up; he was drunk with sleep and frightened; he betrayed himself.
From that time I cross-examined my people chiefly at night. ...
Once a woman complained that she had been kept standing outside my room the whole night, awaiting her turn.
Her legs were shaking and she was completely tired out; in the middle of the hearing she fell asleep.
I woke her up; she went on talking, in a sleepy mumbling voice, without fully realizing what she was saying, and fell asleep again.
I woke her once more, and she admitted everything and signed the statement without reading it, in order that I should let her sleep.
Her husband had hidden two machine guns in his barn and persuaded the farmers of his village to burn the corn because the Anti-Christ had appeared to him in a dream.
That the wife had been kept waiting on her feet the whole night was due to the carelessness of my sergeant; from then onwards I encouraged carelessness of that kind; stubborn cases had to stand upright on one spot for as long as forty-eight hours. After that the wax had melted out of their ears, and one could talk to them. ...”
The two chess-players in the other corner of the room threw over the chess-men and started a new game. The third man had already left.
Ivanov watched Gletkin while he talked.
His voice was as sober and expressionless as ever.
“My colleagues had similar experiences.
It was the only possible way to obtain results.
The regulations were observed; not a prisoner was actually touched.
But it happened that they had to witness—so to speak accidentally—the execution of their fellow prisoners.
The effect of such scenes is partly mental, partly physical.
Another example: there are showers and baths for reasons of hygiene.
That in winter the heating and hot-water pipes did not always function, was due to technical difficulties; and the duration of the baths depended on the attendants.
Sometimes, again, the heating and hot-water apparatus functioned all too well; that equally depended on the attendants.
They were all old comrades; it was not necessary to give them detailed instructions; they understood what was at stake.”
“That’ll about do,” said Ivanov.
“You asked me how I came to discover my theory and I am explaining it to you,” said Gletkin.
“What matters is, that one should keep in mind the logical necessity of it all; otherwise one is a cynic, like you.
It is getting late and I must go.”
Ivanov emptied his glass and settled his artificial leg on the chair; he again had rheumatic pains in the stump.
He was annoyed with himself for having started this conversation.
Gletkin paid. When the canteen waiter had gone, he asked:
“What is going to be done about Rubashov?”
“I have told you my opinion,” said Ivanov. “He should be left in peace.”