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By Root 3770 0

signed the statement, in which he confessed to having committed his crimes through counterrevolutionary motives and in the service of a foreign Power. As he raised his head, his gaze fell on the portrait of No. 1 hanging on the wall, and once again he recognized the expression of knowing irony with which years ago No. 1 had taken leave of him--that melancholy cynicism which stared down on humanity from the omnipresent portrait. "It does not matter if you don't understand," said Rubashov. "There are things which only that older generation, the Ivanovs, Rubashovs and Kieffers have understood. That is over now." "I will give order that you are not to be troubled until the trial," said Gletkin after a short pause, again stiff and precise. Rubashov's smiling irritated him. "Have you any other particular wish?" "To sleep," said Rubashov. He stood in the open door, beside the giant warder, small, elderly and insignificant with his pince-nez and beard. "I will give orders that your sleep must not be disturbed," said Gletkin. When the door had shut behind Rubashov, he went back to his desk. For a few seconds he sat still. Then he rang for his secretary. She sat down in her usual place in the corner. "I congratulate you on your success, Comrade Gletkin," she said. Gletkin turned the lamp down to normal. "That," he said with a glance at the lamp, "plus lack of sleep and physical exhaustion. It is all a matter of constitution."

The Grammatical Fiction

Show us not the aim without the way. For ends and means on earth are so entangled That changing one, you change the other too; Each different path brings other ends in view. FERDINAND LASSALLE: Franz von Sickingen

1

"ASKED WHETHER HE PLEADED GUILTY, the accused Rubashov answered ‘Yes' in a clear voice. To a further question of the Public Prosecutor as to whether the accused had acted as an agent of the counter-revolution,he again answered ‘Yes' in a lower voice. ..." The porter Wassilij's daughter read slowly, each syllable separately. She had spread the newspaper on the table and followed the lines with her finger; from time to time she smoothed her flowered head-kerchief "... Asked whether he wanted an advocate for his defence, the accused declared he would forgo that right. The court then proceeded to the reading of the accusation. ..." The porter Wassilij waslying on the bed with his face turned to the wall. Vera Wassiljovna never quite knew whether the old man listened to her reading or slept. Sometimes he mumbled to himself. She had learnt not to pay any attention to that, and had made a habit of reading the paper aloud every evening, "for educational reasons" even when after work at the factory she had to go to a meeting of her cell and returned home late. "... The Definition of the Charge states that the accused Rubashov is proved guilty on all points contained in the accusation, by documentary evidence and his own confession in the preliminary investigation. In answer to a question of the President of the Court as to whether he had any complaint to make against the conduct of the preliminary investigation, the accused answered in the negative, and added that he had made his confession of his own free will, in sincere repentance of his counter-revolutionary crimes. ..." The porter Wassilij did not move. Above the bed, directly over his head, hung the portrait of No. 1. Next to it a rusty nail stuck out of the wall: until a short time ago the photograph of Rubashov as Partisan-commander had hung there. Wassilij's hand felt automatically for the hole in his mattress in which he used to hide his greasy Bible from the daughter; but shortly after Rubashov's arrest the daughter had found it and thrown it away, for educational reasons. "... At the Prosecutor's request, the accused Rubashov now proceeded to describe his evolution from an opponent of the Party line to a counter-revolutionary and traitor to the Fatherland. In the presence of a tense audience, the accused began his statement as follows: ‘Citizen Judges, I will explain what led me to capitulate before the investigating