A few days afterwards Arlova and another member of the staff were recalled.
Their names were never mentioned by their former colleagues; but, during the months he remained in the Legation before he was himself recalled, the sisterly scent of her large, lazy body clung to the walls of his room and never left them.
4
ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.
Since the morning of the tenth day after Rubashov’s arrest, his new neighbour to the left, the occupant of No. 406, tapped out the same line at regular intervals, always with the same spelling mistake: “ARIE” Instead of “ARISE”.
Rubashov had tried to start a conversation with him several times.
As long as Rubashov was tapping, his new neighbour listened in silence; but the only answer he ever received was a row of disconnected letters and to conclude always the same crippled verse:
ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.
The new neighbour had been put in there the night before. Rubashov had woken, but had only heard muffled sounds and the locking of cell No. 406.
In the morning after the first bugle-blast, No. 406 had at once started to tap: ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.
He tapped quickly and deftly, with the technique of a virtuoso, so that his spelling mistake and the senselessness of his other messages must have had not technical but mental causes.
Probably the new neighbour’s mind was deranged.
After breakfast, the young officer in No. 402 gave the sign that he wanted conversation.
Between Rubashov and No. 402 a sort of friendship had developed.
The officer with the eye-glass and the turned-up moustache must have been living in a state of chronic boredom, for he was always grateful to Rubashov for the smallest crumbs of conversation.
Five or six times during the day he would humbly beg Rubashov:
DO TALK TO ME. ...
Rubashov was rarely in the mood for it; neither did he know quite what to talk about to No. 402.
Usually No. 402 tapped out classical anecdotes of the officer’s mess.
When the point had been reached, there would be a painful silence.
They were dusty old anecdotes, of a patriarchal obscenity; one imagined how, having tapped them to a conclusion, No. 402 would wait for roars of laughter and stare despairingly at the dumb, whitewashed wall.
Out of sympathy and politeness, Rubashov occasionally tapped out a loud HA-HA! with his pince-nez as a laughter-substitute. Then there would be no holding No. 402; he imitated an outburst of merriment, by drumming against the wall with fists and boots: HA-HA! HA-HA! and making occasional pauses, to make sure Rubashov was joining in.
If Rubashov remained silent, he was reproachful: YOU DIDN’T LAUGH. ...
If, in order to be left in peace, Rubashov gave one or two HA-HA’s, No. 402 informed him afterwards: WE HAD JOLLY GOOD FUN.
Sometimes he reviled Rubashov.
Occasionally, if he got no answer, he would tap out the whole of a military song with an endless number of verses.
It sometimes happened, when Rubashov was walking to and fro, sunk in a day-dream or in meditation, that he started humming the refrain of an old march, the sign for which his ear had unconsciously registered.
And yet No. 402 was useful.
He had been there for more than two years already; he knew the ropes, he was in communication with several neighbours and heard all the gossip; he seemed informed of everything which happened in the building.
On the morning after the arrival of No. 406, when the officer opened the usual conversation, Rubashov asked him whether he knew who was his new neighbour.
To which 402 replied:
RIP VAN WINKLE.
No. 402 was fond of speaking in riddles, in order to bring an element of excitement into the conversation.
Rubashov searched his memory. He remembered the story of the man who had slept for twenty-five years and found an unrecognizable world on his awakening.
HAS HE LOST HIS MEMORY? asked Rubashov.
No. 402, satisfied by his effect, told Rubashov what he knew.
No. 406 had once been a teacher of sociology in a small state in the south-east of Europe.
At the end of the last War he took part in the revolution which had broken out in his country, as in most countries of Europe at that time.
A “Commune” was created, which led a romantic existence for a few weeks, and met the usual bloody end.
The leaders of the revolution had been amateurs, but the repression which followed was carried out with professional thoroughness; No. 406, to whom the Commune had given the sonorous title of “State Secretary for the Enlightenment of the People”, was condemned to death by hanging.
He waited a year for his execution, then the sentence was commuted to lifelong imprisonment.
He served twenty years of it.
He served twenty years, most of the time in solitary confinement, without communication with the outside world, and without newspapers.
He was to all intents and purposes forgotten; the administration of justice in that south-eastern country still was of a rather patriarchal character. A month ago he was suddenly released by an amnesty—Rip Van Winkle, who, after more than twenty years of sleep and darkness, finds himself on earth again.
He took the first train hither, to the land of his dreams.
Fourteen days after his arrival he was arrested.
Perhaps, after twenty years of solitary confinement, he had become too talkative.
Perhaps he had told people what he had imagined the life would be like over here—during the days and nights in his cell.
Perhaps he had asked for the addresses of old friends, the heroes of the Revolution, without knowing that they were nothing but traitors and spies.
Perhaps he had laid a wreath on the wrong grave, or had wished to pay a call on his illustrious neighbour, Comrade Rubashov.