Books: Brightest in Dungeons

(2 of 4)

The brilliant and terrible inquisitorial conversations, in which Ivanov and Gletkin try to make the old Bolshevik confess, have the suspense and pace of fast action. Equally expert is the statement of position which Author Koestler writes into Rubashov's diary for him and which is Rubashov's epitaph:
"A short time ago, our leading agriculturalist, B., was shot with thirty of his collaborators because he maintained the opinion that nitrate artificial manure was superior to potash. No. 1 is all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs. In a nationally centralized agriculture, the alternative of nitrate or potash is of enormous importance : it can decide the issue of the next war. If No. 1 was in the right, history will absolve him. ... If he was wrong. ... It is that alone that matters: who is objectively in the right. ... For us the question of subjective good faith is of no interest. ..."

Rubashov knows there are only two possible ethical positions: "one of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct. . . . The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be ... sacrificed to the community. . . ."

Not Rubashov and not Gletkin, but the man who incarnates the humane, discarded ethic is the hero of Darkness at Noon. He has no name, but a cell number, No. 402. He never appears in the novel. The only description of him is what Rubashov imagines he looks like. He has no voice. All he is, feels, fears, stands for, he can communicate only by tapping on the cell wall. He is the wraith of a cause which survives only, like a Marxist antithesis, in the prison where Marxists think they have buried it. Among a population of logical monsters, he is the only fallible human being.

No. 402 began to tap shortly after Rubashov moved in. WHO? he tapped, using the old revolutionist's code. "Well why not?" thought Rubashov self-importantly, tapped out his full name. There was no answer. Suddenly No. 402 began to tap again, evidently using his shoe to make it louder: LONG LIVE H.M. THE EMPEROR !

Later, when Rubashov tapped: HAVE YOU ANY TOBACCO?, No. 402 tapped slowly and carefully: NOT FOR YOU. Rubashov was hurt. He could imagine the young Tsarist officer with a grin on his face and a monocle stuck in his eye. Probably he had lit a cigaret and was blowing the smoke against the wall. "Yes, how many of yours have I had shot?" Rubashov could scarcely remember—"something between seventy and a hundred . . . and he would do it again today." Then he heard No. 402 tapping: SENDING YOU TOBACCO.

Sometimes No. 402 begged for conversation : DO TALK TO ME. . He had an erotic turn, liked to tell stale jokes from the officers' mess. After the jokes there would be a painful silence. Out of politeness, Rubashov sometimes tapped a loud, HA! HA!