Such peculiar birds as you are found only in the trees of revolution.
For the others it is easier. ...”
He looked at his watch.
The cell window had turned a dirty grey; the newspaper which was stuck over the broken pane swelled and rustled in the morning breeze.
On the rampart opposite, the sentry was still doing his hundred steps up and down.
“For a man with your past,” Ivanov went on, “this sudden revulsion against experimenting is rather naive.
Every year several million people are killed quite pointlessly by epidemics and other natural catastrophes.
And we should shrink from sacrificing a few hundred thousand for the most promising experiment in history?
Not to mention the legions of those who die of under-nourishment and tuberculosis in coal and quicksilver; mines, rice-fields and cotton plantations.
No one takes any notice of them; nobody asks why or what for; but if here we shoot a few thousand objectively harmful people, the humanitarians all over the world foam at the mouth.
Yes, we liquidated the parasitic part of the peasantry and let it die of starvation.
It was a surgical operation which had to be done once and for all; but in the good old days before the Revolution just as many died in any dry year—only senselessly and pointlessly.
The victims of the Yellow River floods in China amount sometimes to hundreds of thousands.
Nature is generous in her senseless experiments on mankind.
Why should mankind not have the right to experiment on itself?”
He paused; Rubashov did not answer.
He went on: “Have you ever read brochures of an anti-vivisectionist society?
They are shattering and heartbreaking; when one reads how some poor cur which has had its liver cut out, whines and licks his tormentor’s hands, one is just as nauseated as you were to-night.
But if these people had their say, we would have no serums against cholera, typhoid, or diphtheria. ...”
He emptied the rest of the bottle, yawned, stretched and stood up.
He limped over to Rubashov at the window, and looked out.
“It’s getting light,” he said.
“Don’t be a fool, Rubashov.
Everything I brought up to-night is elementary knowledge, which you know as well as I.
You were in a state of nervous depression, but now it is over.”
He stood next to Rubashov at the window, with his arm round Rubashov’s shoulders; his voice was nearly tender.
“Now go and sleep it off, old warhorse; to-morrow the time is up, and we will both need a clear head to concoct your deposition.
Don’t shrug your shoulders—you are yourself at least half convinced that you will sign.
If you deny it, it’s just moral cowardice.
Moral cowardice has driven many to martyrdom.”
Rubashov looked out into the grey light.
The sentry was just doing a right-about turn.
Above the machinegun turret the sky was pale grey, with a shade of red.
“I’ll think it over again,” said Rubashov after a while.
When the door had closed behind his visitor, Rubashov knew that he had already half-surrendered.
He threw himself on the bunk, exhausted and yet strangely relieved.
He felt hollowed-out and sucked dry, and at the same time as if a weight had been lifted from him.
Bogrov’s pathetic appeal had in his memory lost some of its acoustic sharpness.
Who could call it betrayal if, instead of the dead, one held faith with the living?
While Rubashov slept quietly and dreamlessly—the toothache had also quietened down—Ivanov, on the way to his room, paid a visit to Gletkin.
Gletkin sat at his desk in full uniform, and was working through files.
For years he had had the habit of working right through the night three or four times a week.
When Ivanov entered the room, Gletkin stood up to attention.
“It is all right,” said Ivanov.
“To-morrow he will sign.
But I had to sweat to repair your idiocy.”
Gletkin did not answer; he stood stiffly in front of his desk.
Ivanov, who remembered the sharp scene he had had with Gletkin before his visit to Rubashov’s cell and knew that Gletkin did not forget a rebuff so easily, shrugged his shoulders and blew cigarette smoke into Gletkin’s face.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said.
“You all still suffer from personal feelings.