Now he could ask himself which was better two decades of dreams on a palliasse in a dark cell or two weeks’ reality in the light of day.
Perhaps he was no longer quite sane. That was the story of Rip Van Winkle. ...
Some time after No. 402 had tapped out his long report, Rip Van Winkle again started; five or six times he repeated his mutilated verse, ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, and then fell silent.
Rubashov lay on his bunk, with eyes shut.
The “grammatical fiction” was again making itself felt; it did not express itself in words, only in a vague uneasiness which meant:
“For that too you must pay, for that too you are responsible; for you acted while he dreamed.”
In the same afternoon Rubashov was taken to be shaved.
This time the procession consisted only of the old warder and one uniformed guard; the old man shuffled along two steps ahead, the soldier marched along two steps behind Rubashov.
They passed No. 406; but there was still no name-card on the door.
In the barber’s shop there was only one of the two prisoners who ran it; it was obviously being seen to that Rubashov did not make too many contacts.
He sat down in the armchair. The establishment was comparatively clean; there was even a mirror. He took off his pince-nez and glanced at his face in the glass; he saw no change, except for the stubble on his cheeks.
The barber worked in silence, rapidly and carefully.
The door of the room remained open; the warder had shuffled off; the uniformed guard stood leaning against the door-post and watched the procedure.
The tepid lather on his face made Rubashov feel happy; he felt a slight temptation to yearn after the little pleasures of life.
He would have liked to chat to the barber, but he knew it was forbidden, and he did not want to make trouble for the barber, whose broad, open face he liked.
By his physiognomy, Rubashov would have taken him more for a locksmith or a mechanic.
When the soaping was over, after the first stroke of the razor, the barber asked whether the blade did not scratch, addressing him as “Citizen Rubashov”.
It was the first sentence spoken since Rubashov had entered the room, and in spite of the barber’s matter-of-fact tone, it acquired a special significance.
Then there was silence again; the guard in the doorway lit a cigarette; the barber trimmed Rubashov’s goatee and head with quick, precise movements.
While he stood bent over Rubashov, the latter caught his eye for a moment; in the same instant the barber pushed two fingers under Rubashov’s collar, as if to reach the hair on his neck more easily; as he drew out his fingers, Rubashov felt the scratching of a little ball of paper under his collar.
A few minutes later the operation was over and Rubashov was conducted back to his cell.
He sat down on the bed, with his eye on the spy hole to make sure he was not observed, extracted the bit of paper, flattened it and read it.
It consisted of only three words, apparently scribbled in a great hurry:
“Die in silence.”
Rubashov threw the scrap of paper into the bucket and started again on his wanderings.
It was the first message which had reached him from outside.
In the enemy country he had often had messages smuggled to him in prison; they had summoned him to raise his voice in protest, to hurl the accusation back at his accusers.
Were there also moments in history, in which the revolutionary had to keep silent?
Were there turning points in history, where only one thing was required of him, only one thing was right: to die in silence?
Rubashov’s thoughts were interrupted by No. 402, who had started tapping immediately on his return; he was bursting with curiosity and wanted to find out where Rubashov had been taken.
TO BE SHAVED, explained Rubashov.
I FEARED THE WORST ALREADY, tapped No. 402 feelingly.
AFTER YOU, tapped back Rubashov.
As usual, No. 402 was a grateful audience.
HA-HA! he expressed. YOU ARE A DEMO, OF A FELLOW. ...
Strangely enough, this archaic compliment filled Rubashov with a kind of satisfaction.
He envied No. 402, whose caste possessed a rigid code of honour prescribing how to live and how to die.
To that one could cling.
For his own kind there was no text book; everything had to be worked out.
Even for dying there was no etiquette.
What was more honourable: to die in silence—or to abase oneself publicly, in order to be able to pursue one’s aims?
He had sacrificed Arlova because his own existence was more valuable to the Revolution.
That was the decisive argument his friends had used to convince him; the duty to keep oneself in reserve for later on, was more important than the commandments of petty bourgeois morality.
For those who had changed the face of history, there was no other duty than to stay here and be ready.
“You can do what you like with me,” Arlova had said, and so he had done.
Why should he treat himself with more consideration?
“The coming decade will decide the fate of our era,” Ivanov had quoted.
Could he abscond out of mere personal disgust and tiredness and vanity?
And what if, after all, No. 1 were in the right?
If here, in dirt and blood and lies, after all and in spite of everything, the grandiose foundations of the future were being laid?