Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler [82]
These simple sentences, which he had written nearly a lifetime ago, in a polemic against the "moderates", contained his own condemnation. He felt in no state to continue the argument with Gletkin. The consciousness of his complete defeat filled him with a kind of relief; the obligation to continue the fight, the burden of responsibility were taken from him; the drowsiness of before returned. He felt the hammering in his head only as a faint echo, and for a few seconds it seemed to him that behind the desk sat, not Gletkin, but No. 1, with that look of strangely understanding irony he had given Rubashov as they shook hands at their last leave-taking. An inscription came into his mind which he had read on the gateway of the cemetery at Errancis where Saint-Just, Robespierre and their sixteen beheaded comrades lay buried It consisted of one word; Dormir--to sleep. From that moment onwards, Rubashov's recollection again became hazy. He had probably fallen asleep for the second time--for a few minutes or seconds; but this time he did not remember having dreamed. He must have been woken by Gletkin to sign the statement. Gletkin passed him his fountain pen which, Rubashov noticed with slight disgust, was still warm from his pocket. The stenographer had ceased writing; there was complete silence in the room. The lamp had also stopped humming and spread a normal, rather faded light, for dawn appeared already at the window. Rubashov signed. The feeling of relief and irresponsibility remained, though he had forgotten the reason for it; then, drunk with sleep, he read through the statement in which he confessed to having incited young Kieffer to murder the leader of the Party. For a few seconds he had the feeling that it was all a grotesque misunderstanding; he had an impulse to cross out his signature and to tear up the document; then everything came back to him again, he rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve and handed the paper over the desk to Gletkin. The next thing he could remember was,that he was walking through the corridor again, escorted by the uniformed giant who had conducted him to Gletkin's room an immeasurable time ago. Half asleep, he passed the barber's room and the cellar steps; his fears on the way there occurred to him; he wondered a little at himself and smiled vaguely into the distance. Then he heard the cell door bang behind him and sank down on his bunk with a feeling of physical bliss; he saw the grey morning light on the window-panes with the familiar piece of newspaper stuck to the frame, and fell asleep at once. When his cell door opened again, it was not yet quite daylight; he could hardly have slept an hour. He thought at first that the breakfast was being brought; but outside stood, instead of the old warder, again the giant in uniform. And Rubashov understood that he had to return to Gletkin and that the cross-examination would go on. He rubbed cold water on forehead and neck at the washbasin, put on his pince-nez, and again started the march through the corridors, past barber's room and cellar stairs, with steps which swayed slightly without his knowing it.
4
From then onwards the veil of mist over Rubashov's memory became thicker. Later, he could only remember separate fragments of his dialogue with Gletkin, which extended over several days and nights, with short intervals of an hour or two. He could not even say exactly how many days and nights it had been; they must have spread over a week. Rubashov had heard of this method of complete physical crushing of the accused, in which usually two or three examining magistrates relieved each other in turn in a continuous cross-examination. But the difference with Gletkin's method was that he never had himself relieved, and exacted as much from himself as from Rubashov. Thus he deprived Rubashov of his last psychological resort: the pathos of the maltreated, the moral superiority of the victim. After forty-eight hours, Rubashov had lost the sense of day and night. When, after an hour's sleep, the giant shook him awake, he was no longer able to decide whether