Read Online Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler - Free Book Online
Authors: Arthur Koestler
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it again,” he said to himself. “It was necessary and right. But do I perhaps owe you the fare all the same? Must one also pay for deeds which were right and necessary?”
The dryness in his throat increased. He felt a pressure in his forehead; he went restlessly back and forth, and while he thought his lips began to move.
Must one also pay for righteous acts? Was there another measure besides that of reason?
Did the righteous man perhaps carry the heaviest debt when weighed by this other measure? Was his debt, perhaps, counted double—for the others knew not what they did? ...
Rubashov stood still on the third black tile from the window.
What was this? A breath of religious madness? He became conscious that he had for several minutes been talking half aloud to himself. And even as he was watching himself, his lips, independently of his will, moved and said:
“I shall pay.”
For the first time since his arrest Rubashov was scared. He felt for his cigarettes. But he had none.
Then again he heard the delicate tappings on the wall over the bedstead. No. 402 had a message for him:
HARE-LIP SENDS YOU GREETINGS.
He saw in his mind’s eye the yellow, upturned face of the man: the message made him feel uncomfortable. He tapped:
WHAT IS HIS NAME?
No. 402 answered:
HE WON’T SAY. BUT HE SENDS YOU GREETINGS.
12
During the afternoon Rubashov felt even worse. He was seized by periodic fits of shivering. His tooth also had started to ache again—the right eye-tooth which was connected to the eye-nerve orbitalis. He had had nothing to eat since his arrest, yet did not feel hungry. He tried to collect his wits, but the cold shudders which ran over him and itching and tickling in his throat prevented him. His thoughts circled alternatively round two poles: the desperate thirst for a cigarette and the sentence: I shall pay.
Memories overwhelmed him; they hummed and buzzed subduedly in his ears. Faces and voices came up and vanished; wherever he tried to hold them they hurt him; his whole past was sore and festered at every touch. His past was the movement, the Party; present and future, too, belonged to the Party, were inseparably bound up with its fate; but his past was identical with it. And it was this past that was suddenly put in question. The Party’s warm, breathing body appeared to him to be covered with sores—festering sores, bleeding stigmata. When and where in history had there ever been such defective saints? Whenever had a good cause been worse represented? If the Party embodied the will of history, then history itself was defective.
Rubashov gazed at the damp patches on the walls of his cell. He tore the blanket off the bunk and wrapped it round his shoulders; he quickened his pace and marched to and fro with short, quick steps, making sudden turns at door and window; but shivers continued to run down his back. The buzzing in his ears went on, mixed with vague, soft voices; he could not make out whether they came from the corridor or whether he was suffering from hallucinations. It is the orbitalis, he said to himself; it comes from the broken-off root of the eye-tooth. I will tell the doctor about it tomorrow, but in the meantime there is still a lot to do. The cause of the Party’s defectiveness must be found. All our principles were right, but our results were wrong. This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but wherever we applied the healing knife a new sore appeared. Our will was hard and pure, we should have been loved by the people. But they hate us. Why are we so odious and detested?
We brought you truth, and in our mouth it sounded a lie. We brought you freedom, and it looks in our hands like a whip. We brought you the living life, and where our voice is heard the trees wither and there is a rustling of dry leaves. We brought you the promise of the future, but our tongue stammered and barked. ...
He shivered. A picture appeared in his
The dryness in his throat increased. He felt a pressure in his forehead; he went restlessly back and forth, and while he thought his lips began to move.
Must one also pay for righteous acts? Was there another measure besides that of reason?
Did the righteous man perhaps carry the heaviest debt when weighed by this other measure? Was his debt, perhaps, counted double—for the others knew not what they did? ...
Rubashov stood still on the third black tile from the window.
What was this? A breath of religious madness? He became conscious that he had for several minutes been talking half aloud to himself. And even as he was watching himself, his lips, independently of his will, moved and said:
“I shall pay.”
For the first time since his arrest Rubashov was scared. He felt for his cigarettes. But he had none.
Then again he heard the delicate tappings on the wall over the bedstead. No. 402 had a message for him:
HARE-LIP SENDS YOU GREETINGS.
He saw in his mind’s eye the yellow, upturned face of the man: the message made him feel uncomfortable. He tapped:
WHAT IS HIS NAME?
No. 402 answered:
HE WON’T SAY. BUT HE SENDS YOU GREETINGS.
12
During the afternoon Rubashov felt even worse. He was seized by periodic fits of shivering. His tooth also had started to ache again—the right eye-tooth which was connected to the eye-nerve orbitalis. He had had nothing to eat since his arrest, yet did not feel hungry. He tried to collect his wits, but the cold shudders which ran over him and itching and tickling in his throat prevented him. His thoughts circled alternatively round two poles: the desperate thirst for a cigarette and the sentence: I shall pay.
Memories overwhelmed him; they hummed and buzzed subduedly in his ears. Faces and voices came up and vanished; wherever he tried to hold them they hurt him; his whole past was sore and festered at every touch. His past was the movement, the Party; present and future, too, belonged to the Party, were inseparably bound up with its fate; but his past was identical with it. And it was this past that was suddenly put in question. The Party’s warm, breathing body appeared to him to be covered with sores—festering sores, bleeding stigmata. When and where in history had there ever been such defective saints? Whenever had a good cause been worse represented? If the Party embodied the will of history, then history itself was defective.
Rubashov gazed at the damp patches on the walls of his cell. He tore the blanket off the bunk and wrapped it round his shoulders; he quickened his pace and marched to and fro with short, quick steps, making sudden turns at door and window; but shivers continued to run down his back. The buzzing in his ears went on, mixed with vague, soft voices; he could not make out whether they came from the corridor or whether he was suffering from hallucinations. It is the orbitalis, he said to himself; it comes from the broken-off root of the eye-tooth. I will tell the doctor about it tomorrow, but in the meantime there is still a lot to do. The cause of the Party’s defectiveness must be found. All our principles were right, but our results were wrong. This is a diseased century. We diagnosed the disease and its causes with microscopic exactness, but wherever we applied the healing knife a new sore appeared. Our will was hard and pure, we should have been loved by the people. But they hate us. Why are we so odious and detested?
We brought you truth, and in our mouth it sounded a lie. We brought you freedom, and it looks in our hands like a whip. We brought you the living life, and where our voice is heard the trees wither and there is a rustling of dry leaves. We brought you the promise of the future, but our tongue stammered and barked. ...
He shivered. A picture appeared in his
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