Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler [43]
tried to study this newly discovered entity very thoroughly during his wanderings through the cell; with the shyness of emphasizing the first person singular customary in the Party, he had christened it the "grammatical fiction". He probably had only a few weeks left to live, and he felt a compelling urge to clear up this matter, to "think it to a logical conclusion". But the realm of the "grammatical fiction" seemed to begin just where the "thinking to a conclusion" ended. It was obviously an essential part of its being, to remain out of the reach of logical thought, and then to take one unawares, as from an ambush, and attack one with daydreams and toothache. Thus, Rubashov passed the entire seventh day of his imprisonment, the third after the first hearing, re-living a past period of his existence--namely, his relation with the girl Arlova, who had been shot. The exact moment in which, in spite of his resolutions, he had slid into the day-dream was as impossible to establish afterwards as the moment in which one falls asleep. On the morning of this seventh day, he had worked on his notes, then, presumably, he had stood up to stretch his legs a bit--and only when he heard the rattling of the key in the lock did he wake up to the fact that it was already midday, and that he had walked back and forth in the cell for hours on end. He even had hung the blanket round his shoulders because, presumably also for several hours, he had been rhythmically shaken by a kind of ague and had felt the nerve of his tooth pulsing in his temples. He absently spooned out his bowl which the orderlies had filled with their ladles, and continued his walk. The warder, who observed him from time to time through the spy-hole, saw that he had shiveringly hunched up his shoulders and that his lips were moving. Once more Rubashov breathed the air of his erstwhile office in the Trade Delegation, which was filled with the peculiarly familiar odor of Arlova's big, well-formed and sluggish body; once more he saw the curve of her bowed neck over the white blouse, bent over her note-book while he dictated, and her round eyes following his wanderings through the room in the intervals between the sentences. She always wore white blouses, of the same kind as Rubashov's sisters had worn at home, embroidered with little flowers at the high neck, and always the same cheap ear-rings, which stood out a little from her cheeks as she bent over her note-book. In her slow, passive way, she was as if made for this job, and had an unusually quietening effect on Rubashov's nerves when he was overworked. He had taken over his new post as leader of the Trade Delegation in B. immediately after the incident with Little Loewy, and had-thrown himself into work head first; he was grateful to the C.C. for providing him with this bureaucratic activity. It was exceedingly rare that leading men out of the International were transferred to the diplomatic services. No. 1 presumably had special intentions with him, for usually the two hierarchies were kept strictly apart, were not allowed to have contact with each other, and sometimes even followed opposite policies. Only when seen from the higher viewpoint of the spheres around No. 1 did the apparent contradictions resolve themselves and the motives became clear. Rubashov needed some time to get used to his new way of life; it amused him that he now had a diplomatic passport, which was even authentic and in his own name; that, in formal clothes, he had to take part in receptions; that policemen stood to attention for him, and that the inconspicuously dressed men in black bowlers who sometimes followed him about were doing it solely out of tender care for his safety. At first he felt slightly estranged by the atmosphere in the rooms of the Trade Delegation, which was attached to the legation. He understood that in the bourgeois world one had to be representative and play their game, but he considered that the game was played rather too well here, so that it was hardly possible to distinguish appearance from reality. When the First Secretary