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By Root 3784 0

the corridor with his legs straddled and his hands behind his back. "The prisoner has no eating bowl either," said Rubashov, still busied with the lacing of his shoe. "I suppose you want to save me the trouble of a hunger-strike. I admire your new methods." "You are mistaken," said the officer, looking at him expressionlessly. He had a broad scar on his shaven skull and wore the ribbon of the Revolutionary Order in his buttonhole. So he was in the Civil War, after all, thought Rubashov. But that is long ago and makes no difference now. ... "You are mistaken. You were left out at breakfast because you had reported yourself sick." "Toothache," said the old warder, who stood leaning against the door. He still woreslippers, his uniform was crumpled and spotted with grease. "As you like," said Rubashov. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask whether it was the latest achievement of the ré gime to treat invalids by compulsory fasting, but he controlled himself. He was sick of the whole scene. The bread-orderly came running, panting and flapping a dirty rag. The warder took the rag out of his hand and threw it in a corner next to the bucket. "Have you any more requests?" asked the officer without irony. "Leave me alone and stop this comedy," said Rubashov. The officer turned togo, the warder jangled his bunch of keys. Rubashov went to the window, turning his back on them. When the door had slammed he remembered that he had forgotten the chief thing and with a bound he was back at the door. "Paper and pencil," he shouted through the spy-hole. He took off his pince-nez and stuck his eye to the hole to see whether they turned round. He had shouted very loudly, but the procession moved down the corridor as if it had heard nothing. The last he saw of it was the back of the officer with the shaven skull and the broad leather belt with the revolver-case attached to it.

8 Rubashov resumed walking up and down his cell, six and a half steps to the window, six and a half steps back. The scene had stirred him; he recapitulated it in minute detail while rubbing his pince-nez on his sleeve. He tried to hold on to the hatred he had for a few minutes felt for the officer with the scar; he thought it might stiffen him for the coming struggle. Instead, he fell once more under the familiar and fatal constraint to put himself in the position of his opponent, and to see the scene through the other's eyes. There he had sat, this man Rubashov, on the bunk-- small, bearded, arrogant-- and in an obviously provocative manner, had put his shoe on over the sweaty sock. Of course, this man Rubashov had his merits and a great past; but it was one thing to see him on the platform at a congress and another, on a palliasse in a cell. So that is the legendary Rubashov, thought Rubashov in the name of the officer with the expressionless eyes. Screams for his breakfast like a schoolboy and isn't even ashamed. Cell not cleaned up. Holes in his sock.Querulous intellectual.Conspired against law and order: whether for money or on principle makes no difference. We did not make the revolution for cranks. True, he helped to make it; at that time he was a man; but now he is old and self-righteous, ripe for liquidation. Perhaps he was so even at that time; there were many soap bubbles in the revolution which burst afterwards. If he still had a vestige of self-respect, he would clean his cell. For a few seconds Rubashov wondered whether he should really scrub the tiles. He stood hesitantly in the middle of the cell, then put his pince-nez on again and propped himself at the window. The yard was now in daylight, a greyish light tinged with yellow, not unfriendly, promising more snow. It was about eight-- only three hours had passed since he first entered the cell. The walls surrounding the yard looked like those of barracks; iron gates were in front of all the windows, the cells behind them were too dark for one to see into them. It was impossible even to see whether anyone stood directly behind his window, looking down, like him, at the snow in the yard. It was nice snow,