ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.
Rubashov was lying on his bunk again, without knowing how he had got there.
He still had the drumming in his ears, but the silence was now a true silence, empty and relaxed.
No. 402 was presumably asleep.
Bogrov, or what had remained of him, was presumably dead by now.
“Rubashov, Rubashov. ...” that last cry was branded ineffaceably in his acoustic memory.
The optic image was less sharp. It was still difficult for him to identify with Bogrov that doll like figure with wet face and stiff, trailing legs, which had been dragged through his field of vision in those few seconds. Only now did the white hair occur to him.
What had they done to Bogrov?
What had they done to this sturdy sailor, to draw this childish whimpering from his throat?
Had Arlova whimpered in the same way when she was dragged along the corridor?
Rubashov sat up and leant his forehead against the wall behind which No. 402 slept; he was afraid he was going to be sick again.
Up till now, he had never imagined Arlova’s death in such detail.
It had always been for him an abstract occurrence; it had left him with a feeling of strong uneasiness, but he had never doubted the logical rightness of his behaviour.
Now, in the nausea which turned his stomach and drove the wet perspiration from his forehead, his past mode of thought seemed lunacy.
The whimpering of Bogrov unbalanced the logical equation.
Up till now Arlova had been a factor in this equation, a small factor compared to what was at stake.
But the equation no longer stood.
The vision of Arlova’s legs in their high-heeled shoes trailing along the corridor upset the mathematical equilibrium.
The unimportant factor had grown to the immeasurable, the absolute; Bogrov’s whining, the inhuman sound of the voice which had called out his name, the hollow beat of the drumming, filled his ears; they smothered the thin voice of reason, covered it as the surf covers the gurgling of the drowning.
Exhausted, Rubashov fell asleep, sitting—his head leaning against the wall, the pince-nez before his shut eyes.
7
He groaned in his sleep; the dream of his first arrest had come back; his hand, hanging slackly from the bed, strained for the sleeve of his dressing-gown; he waited for the blow to hit him at last, but it did not come.
Instead, he woke up, because the electric light in his cell was turned on suddenly.
A figure stood next to his bed, looking at him.
Rubashov could hardly have slept a quarter of an hour, but after that dream he always needed several minutes to find himself again.
He blinked in the bright light, his mind worked laboriously through the habitual hypotheses, as though he were carrying out an unconscious ritual.
He was in a cell; but not in the enemy country—that was only dreamed.
So he was free—but the colour-print of No. 1 hanging over his bed was lacking, and over there stood the bucket.
Besides Ivanov was standing at his bedside and blowing cigarette smoke into his face.
Was that also dreamed?
No, Ivanov was real, the bucket was real.
He was in his own country, but it had become an enemy country; and Ivanov, who had been his friend, had now also become an enemy; and the whimpering of Arlova was not a dream either.
But no, it had not been Arlova, but Bogrov, who had been dragged past like a wax-doll; Comrade Bogrov, faithful unto the grave; and he had called out his name; that was not dreamed.
Arlova, on the other hand, had said.
“You can do whatever you like with me. ...”
“Do you feel ill?” asked Ivanov.
Rubashov blinked at him, blinded by the light.
“Give me my dressing-gown,” he said. Ivanov watched him.
The right side of Rubashov’s face was swollen.
“Would you like some brandy?”
Ivanov asked Without waiting for a reply, he hobbled to the spy-hole and called out something into the corridor.
Rubashov’s eyes followed him, blinking.
His dazedness would not go.
He was awake, but he saw, heard and thought in a mist.
“Have you been arrested too?” he asked.
“No,” said Ivanov quietly.
“I only came to visit you.
I think you have a temperature.”
“Give me a cigarette,” said Rubashov.
He inhaled deeply once or twice, and his gaze became clearer.