But everything which he said made a deep impression on me.”
Rubashov bowed his head.
A suspicion had risen in him which affected him almost as a physical pain and made him forget everything else.
Was it possible that this unfortunate youth had in fact drawn the conclusions from his, Rubashov’s, line of thought—that he stood there before him in the glare of the reflector as the consequence incarnate of his own logic?
Gletkin did not let him finish this thought.
His voice rasped:
“... And following upon this preparatory theorizing came the direct instigation to the deed?”
Hare-lip was silent.
He blinked into the light.
Gletkin waited a few seconds for the answer.
Rubashov, too, unintentionally raised his head.
A number of seconds passed, during which one only heard the lamp humming; then came Gletkin’s voice again, even more correct and colourless:
“Would you like your memory to be helped out?”
Gletkin pronounced this sentence with marked casualness, but Hare-lip quivered as though struck by a whip.
He licked his lips and in his eyes appeared the flickering of naked animal terror.
Then his pleasant musical voice sounded again:
“The instigation did not happen that evening, but next morning, in a tete-a-tete between Citizen Rubashov and myself.”
Rubashov smiled.
The postponement of the imaginary conversation to next day was obviously a finesse in Gletkin’s mise en scene; that old man Kieffer should have listened cheerfully while his son was instructed to murder by poison was too improbable a story even for Neanderthal-psychology. ...
Rubashov forgot the shock which he had just received; he turned to Gletkin and asked, blinking at the light:
“I believe the defendant has the right to ask questions during a confrontation?”
“You have the right,” said Gletkin.
Rubashov turned to the young man.
“As far as I remember,” he said, looking at him through his pince-nez, “you had just finished your studies at the University when you and your father came to see me?”
Now that for the first time he spoke directly to Harelip, the hopeful, trusting look returned to the latter’s face.
He nodded.
“So that’s correct,” said Rubashov.
“If I again remember rightly, at that time the intention was that you should start work under your father at the Institute of Historical Research.
Did you do that?”
“Yes,” said Hare-lip, and added after a short hesitation: “Up to my father’s arrest”
“I understand,” said Rubashov.
“This event made it impossible for you to stay at the Institute, and you had to find some way of earning your living. ...”
He paused, turned to Gletkin, and continued:
“... Which proved that at the time of my meeting with this young man neither he nor I could have foreseen his future job; hence the instigation to murder by poison becomes a logical impossibility.”
The secretary’s pencil came to a sudden standstill.
Rubashov knew, without looking at her, that she had ceased recording, and had turned her pointed, mouse-like face to Gletkin.
Hare-lip also stared at Gletkin and licked his upper lip; his eyes showed no relief, only bewilderment and fear.
Rubashov’s momentary feeling of triumph vanished; he had the strange sensation of having disturbed the smooth running of a solemn ceremony.
Gletkin’s voice did in fact sound even cooler and more correct than usual:
“Have you any more questions?”
“That is all for the present,” said Rubashov.
“Nobody asserted that your instructions restricted the murderer to the use of poison,” said Gletkin quietly.
“You gave the order for assassination; the choice of the means you left to your instrument.”
He turned to Hare-lip. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” said Hare-lip, and his voice betrayed a kind of relief.
Rubashov remembered that the accusation had stated in express terms
‘Instigation to murder by poison”, but the whole thing had suddenly become indifferent to him, Whether young Michael had really made the crazy attempt or only planned something of this sort, whether the entire confession had been artificially pumped into him, or only parts of it, now seemed to Rubashov of merely legal interest; it made no difference to his guilt.
The essential point was that this figure of misery represented the consequence of his logic made flesh.
The roles had been exchanged; it was not Gletkin, but he, Rubashov, who had tried to muddle a clear case by splitting hairs.
The accusation, which until now had seemed to him so absurd, in fact merely inserted—though in a clumsy and uncouth manner—the missing links into a perfectly logical chain.