Rubashov tried to study this newly discovered entity very thoroughly during his wanderings through the cell; with the shyness of emphasizing the first person singular customary in the Party, he had christened it the “grammatical fiction”.
He probably had only a few weeks left to live, and he felt a compelling urge to clear up this matter, to “think it to a logical conclusion”.
But the realm of the “grammatical fiction” seemed to begin just where the “thinking to a conclusion” ended.
It was obviously an essential part of its being, to remain out of the reach of logical thought, and then to take one unawares, as from an ambush, and attack one with daydreams and toothache.
Thus, Rubashov passed the entire seventh day of his imprisonment, the third after the first hearing, re-living a past period of his existence—namely, his relation with the girl Arlova, who had been shot.
The exact moment in which, in spite of his resolutions, he had slid into the day-dream was as impossible to establish afterwards as the moment in which one falls asleep.
On the morning of this seventh day, he had worked on his notes, then, presumably, he had stood up to stretch his legs a bit—and only when he heard the rattling of the key in the lock did he wake up to the fact that it was already midday, and that he had walked back and forth in the cell for hours on end.
He even had hung the blanket round his shoulders because, presumably also for several hours, he had been rhythmically shaken by a kind of ague and had felt the nerve of his tooth pulsing in his temples.
He absently spooned out his bowl which the orderlies had filled with their ladles, and continued his walk.
The warder, who observed him from time to time through the spy-hole, saw that he had shiveringly hunched up his shoulders and that his lips were moving.
Once more Rubashov breathed the air of his erstwhile office in the Trade Delegation, which was filled with the peculiarly familiar odor of Arlova’s big, well-formed and sluggish body; once more he saw the curve of her bowed neck over the white blouse, bent over her note-book while he dictated, and her round eyes following his wanderings through the room in the intervals between the sentences.
She always wore white blouses, of the same kind as Rubashov’s sisters had worn at home, embroidered with little flowers at the high neck, and always the same cheap ear-rings, which stood out a little from her cheeks as she bent over her note-book.
In her slow, passive way, she was as if made for this job, and had an unusually quietening effect on Rubashov’s nerves when he was overworked.
He had taken over his new post as leader of the Trade Delegation in B. immediately after the incident with Little Loewy, and had- thrown himself into work head first; he was grateful to the C.C. for providing him with this bureaucratic activity. It was exceedingly rare that leading men out of the International were transferred to the diplomatic services.
No. 1 presumably had special intentions with him, for usually the two hierarchies were kept strictly apart, were not allowed to have contact with each other, and sometimes even followed opposite policies.
Only when seen from the higher viewpoint of the spheres around No. 1 did the apparent contradictions resolve themselves and the motives became clear.
Rubashov needed some time to get used to his new way of life; it amused him that he now had a diplomatic passport, which was even authentic and in his own name; that, in formal clothes, he had to take part in receptions; that policemen stood to attention for him, and that the inconspicuously dressed men in black bowlers who sometimes followed him about were doing it solely out of tender care for his safety.
At first he felt slightly estranged by the atmosphere in the rooms of the Trade Delegation, which was attached to the legation. He understood that in the bourgeois world one had to be representative and play their game, but he considered that the game was played rather too well here, so that it was hardly possible to distinguish appearance from reality.
When the First Secretary of the legation drew Rubashov’s attention to certain necessary changes in his dress and in his style of living—the First Secretary had before the Revolution forged money in the service of the Party—he did not do this in a comradely, humorous way, but with such underlined consideration and tact that the scene became embarrassing and got on Rubashov’s nerves.
Rubashov had twelve subordinates, each with a clearly defined rank; there were First and Second Assistants, First and Second Book-keepers, Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries.
Rubashov had the feeling that the whole bunch of them regarded him as something between a national hero and a robber chief.
They treated him with exaggerated respect and indulgently superior tolerance.
When the Secretary to the legation had to report to him about a document, he made an effort to express himself in the simple terms one would use to a savage or a child.
Rubashov’s private secretary, Arlova, got on his nerves the least; only he could not understand why she wore such ridiculously high-heeled, patent-leather shoes with her pleasant, simple blouses and skirts.
It was nearly a month before he first spoke to her in a conversational tone. He was tired by dictating and walking up and down, and suddenly became aware of the silence in the room.
“Why do you never say anything, Comrade Arlova?” he asked, and sat down in the comfortable chair behind his writing-desk.
“If you like,” she answered in her sleepy voice, “I will always repeat the last word of the sentence.”
Every day she sat on her chair in front of the desk, in her embroidered blouse, her heavy, shapely bust bent over the note-book, with bowed head and ear-rings hanging parallel to her cheeks.
The only jarring element was the patent leather shoes with pointed heels, but she never crossed her legs, as most of the women did whom Rubashov knew.
As he always walked up and down while dictating, he usually saw her from behind or half in profile, and the thing he remembered most clearly was the curve of her bent neck. The back of her neck was neither fluffy nor shaved; the skin was white and taut over the vertebrae; below were the embroidered flowers on the edge of her white blouse.
In his youth Rubashov had not had much to do with women; nearly always they were comrades, and nearly always the start of the affair had been a discussion prolonged so late into the night that whichever was the other’s guest missed the last tram home.
After that unsuccessful attempt at a conversation, another fortnight passed At first Arlova had really repeated the last word of the dictated sentence in her drowsy voice; then she had given it up, and when Rubashov paused, the room was again still and saturated with her sisterly perfume.
One afternoon, to his own surprise, Rubashov stopped behind her chair, put both his hands lightly on her shoulders, and asked her whether she would go out with him in the evening.
She did not jerk back and her shoulders kept still under his touch; she nodded in silence and did not even turn her head.
It was not a habit of Rubashov’s to make frivolous jokes, but later in the same night he could not forbear saying with a smile:
“One would think you were still taking down dictation.”
The outline of her large, well-shaped breast seemed as familiar against the darkness of the room as though she had always been there.
Only the ear-rings now lay flax on the pillow.
Her eyes had the same expression as ever, when she pronounced that sentence which could no more leave Rubashov’s memory than the folded hands of the Pieta, and the smell of sea-weed in the harbour town:
“You will always be able to do what you like with me.”
“But why?” asked Rubashov, astonished and slightly startled
She did not answer.
Probably she was already asleep.
Asleep, her breathing was as inaudible as waking.
Rubashov had never noticed that she breathed at all.
He had never seen her with shut eyes.
It made her face strange to him; it was much more expressive with shut eyes than with open.
Strange to him also were the dark shadows of her armpits; her chin, otherwise lowered to her breast, stuck out steeply like a dead woman’s.
But the light, sisterly scent of her body was familiar to him, even asleep.
The next day and all the following days, she sat again in her white blouse, bent over the desk; the next night and all the following nights the paler silhouette of her breast was raised against the dark bedroom curtain.