Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler [32]
re-defining. That is the point." "Entirely my own opinion," said Ivanov. "I am glad that we have reached the heart of the matter so soon. In other words: you are convinced that ‘we'--that is to say, the Party, the State and the masses behind it--no longer represent the interests of the Revolution." "I should leave the masses out of it," said Rubashov. "Since when have you this supreme contempt for the plebs?" asked Ivanov. "Has that, too, a connection with the grammatical change to the first person singular?" He leant across his desk with a look of benevolent mockery. His head now hid the light patch on the wall and suddenly the scene in the picture gallery occurred to Rubashov, when Richard's head had come between him and the folded hands of thePietà . In the same instant a spasm of pain throbbed from his jaw up to his forehead and ear. For a second he shut his eyes. "Now I am paying," he thought. An instant later he did not know whether he had not spoken aloud. "How do you mean?" Ivanov's voice asked. It sounded close to his ear, mocking and slightly surprised. The pain faded; a peaceful stillness pervaded his mind. "Leave the masses out of it," he repeated. You understand nothing about them. Nor, probably, doI any more. Once, when the great ‘we' still existed, we understood them as no one had ever understood them before. We had penetrated into theirdepths, we worked in the amorphous raw material of history itself. ..." Without noticing it, he had taken a cigarette out of Ivanov's case, which still lay open on the table. Ivanov bent forward and lit it for him. "At that time," Rubashov went on, "we were called the Party of the Plebs. What did the others know of history? Passing ripples, little eddies and breaking waves. They wondered at the changing forms of the surface and could not explain them. But we had descended into the depths, into the formless, anonymous masses, which at all times constituted the substance of history; and we were the first to discover her laws of motion.We had discovered the laws of her inertia,' of the slow changing of her molecular structure, and of her sudden eruptions. That was the greatness of our doctrine. The Jacobins were moralists; we were empirics. We dug in the primeval mud of history and there we found her laws. We knew more than ever men have known about mankind; that is why our revolution succeeded. And now you have buried it all again. ..." Ivanov was sitting back with his legs stretched out, listening and drawing figures on his blotting-paper. "Go on," he said. "I am curious to know what you are driving at." Rubashov was smoking with relish. He felt the nicotine making him slightly dizzy after his long abstinence. "As you notice, I am talking my head off my neck," he said and looked up smilingly at the faded patch on the wall where the photograph of the old guard had once hung. This time Ivanov did not follow his glance. "Well," said Rubashov, "one more makes no difference. Everything is buried; the men, their wisdom and their hopes. You killed the ‘We'; you destroyed it. Do you really maintain that the masses are still behind you? Other usurpers in Europe pretend the same thing with as much right as you ..." He took another cigarette and lit it himself this time, as Ivanov did not move. "Forgive my pompousness," he went on, "but do you really believe the people are still behind you? It bears you, dumb and resigned, as it bears others in other countries, but there is no response in its depths. The masses have become deaf and dumb again, the great silentx of history, indifferent as the sea carrying the ships. Every passing light is reflected on its surface, but underneath is darkness and silence. A long time ago we stirred up the depths, but that is over. In other words"--he paused and put on his pince-nez--"in those days we made history; now you make politics. That's the whole difference." Ivanov leant back in his chair and blew smoke rings. "I'm sorry, but the difference is not quite clear to me," he said. "Perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain." "Certainly," said Rubashov.