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By Root 3741 0

eyes rest on him. Then the doctor said: "Your cheek is swollen. Open your mouth." Rubashov's tooth was not aching at the moment. He opened his mouth. "You have no teeth left at all in the left side of your upper jaw," said the doctor, probing with his finger in Rubashov's mouth. Suddenly Rubashov became pale and had to lean against the wall. "There it is!" said the doctor. "The root of the right eye-tooth is broken off and has remained in the jaw." Rubashov breathed deeply several times. The pain was throbbing from his jaw to his eye and right to the back of his head. He felt each pulsation of the blood singly, at regular intervals. The doctor had sat down again and spread out his newspaper. "If you like I can extract the root for you," he said and took a mouthful of bread and dripping. "We have, of course, no anaesthetics here. The operation takes anything from half an hour to an hour." Rubashov heard the doctor's voice through a mist. He leant against the wall and breathed deeply. "Thank you," he said. "Not now." He thought of Hare-lip and the "steambath" and of the ridiculous gesture yesterday, when he had stubbed out the cigarette on the back of his hand. Things will go badly, he thought. When he was back in his cell, he let himself drop on the bunk and fell asleep at once. At noon, when the soup came, he was no longer omitted; from then on he received his rations regularly. The toothache lessened and remained within bearable limits. Rubashov hoped the abscess in the root had opened by itself. Three days later he was brought up for examination for the first time.

14

It was eleven o'clock in the morning when they came to fetch him. By the warder's solemn expression, Rubashov guessed at once where they were going. He followed the warder, with the serene nonchalance which had always come to him in moments of danger, as an unexpected gift of mercy. They went the same way as three days ago when going to the doctor. The concrete door again opened and crashed shut; strange, thought Rubashov, how quickly one grows used to an intense environment; he felt as if he had been breathing the air of this corridor for years, as if the stale atmosphere of all the prisons he had known had been stored away here. They passed the barber's shop and the doctor's door which was shut; three prisoners stood outside, guarded by a sleepy warder, waiting their turn. Beyond the doctor's door was new ground for Rubashov. They passed a spiral staircase leading down into the depths. What was down there--store-rooms, punishment cells? Rubashov tried to guess, with the interest of the expert. He did not like the look of that staircase. They crossed a narrow, windowless courtyard; it was a blind shaft, rather dark, but over it hung the open sky. On the other side of the courtyard the corridors were brighter; the doors were no longer of concrete, but of painted wood, with brass handles; busy officials passed them; behind a door a wireless was playing, behind another one heard a typewriter. They were in the administrative department. They stopped at the last door, at the end of the corridor; the warder knocked. Inside someone was telephoning; a quiet voice called out: "A minute, please," and went on patiently saying "Yes" and "Quite" into the receiver. The voice seemed familiar to Rubashov, but he could not place it. It was an agreeably masculine voice, slightly husky; he had certainly heard it somewhere before. "Come in," said the voice; the warder opened the door and shut it immediately behind Rubashov. Rubashov saw a desk; behind it sat his old college friend and former battalion commander, Ivanov; he was looking at him smilingly while putting back the receiver. "So here we are again," said Ivanov. Rubashov still stood at the door. "What a pleasant surprise," he said drily. "Sit down," said Ivanov with a polite gesture. He had risen; standing, he was half a head taller than Rubashov. He looked at him smilingly. They both sat down--Ivanov behind the desk, Rubashov in front of it. They stared at each other for some time and with unrestrained curiosity--Ivanov