Darkness at Noon Read Online Free PDF Page B

quarters, also their names and their habits. They knew each other only by their Christian names and did not ask for each other’s addresses. Each gave his life into the other’s hands, and neither trusted the other an inch. They printed pamphlets in which they tried to convince themselves and others that they were still alive. They stole at night through narrow suburban streets and wrote on the walls the old slogans, to prove that they were still alive. They climbed at dawn on factory chimneys and hoisted the old flag, to prove that they were still alive. Only a few people ever saw the pamphlets and they threw them away quickly, for they shuddered at the message of the dead; the slogans on the walls were gone by cock’s crow and the flags were pulled down from the chimneys; but they always appeared again. For all over the country there were small groups of people who called themselves “dead men on holiday”, and who devoted their lives to proving that they still possessed life.
    They had no communication with each other; the nerve fibres of the Party were torn and each group stood for itself. But, gradually, they started to put out feelers again. Respectable commercial travellers came from abroad, with false passports and with double-bottomed trunks; they were the Couriers. Usually they were caught, tortured and beheaded; others took their place. The Party remained dead, it could neither move nor breathe, but its hair and nails continued to grow; the leaders abroad sent galvanizing currents through its rigid body, which caused spasmodic jerks in the limbs.
    Pietà . ... Rubashov forgot No. 402 and went on doing his six and a half steps up and down; he found himself again on the round plush sofa in the picture gallery, which smelled of dust and floor polish. He had driven straight from the station to the appointed meeting place and had arrived a few minutes too soon. He was fairly sure that he had not been observed. His suitcase, which contained samples of a Dutch firm’s latest novelties in dentists’ equipment, lay in the cloakroom. He sat on the round plush sofa, looking through his pince-nez at the masses of flabby flesh on the walls, and waited.
    The young man, who was known by the name of Richard, and was at this time leader of the Party group in this town, came a few minutes too late. He had never seen Rubashov and Rubashov had never seen him, either. He had already gone through two empty galleries when he saw Rubashov on the round sofa. On Rubashov’s knee lay a book: Goethe’s Faust in Reclam’s Universal Edition. The young man noticed the book, gave a hurried look round and sat down beside Rubashov. He was rather shy and sat on the edge of the sofa, about two feet away from Rubashov, his cap on his knees. He was a locksmith by trade and wore a black Sunday suit; he knew that a man in overalls would be conspicuous in a museum.
    “Well?” he said. “You must please excuse my being late.”
    “Good,” said Rubashov. “Let us first go through your people. Have you got a list?”
    The young man called Richard shook his head. “I don’t carry lists,” he said. “I’ve got it all in my head—addresses and alt.”
    “Good,” said Rubashov. “But what if they get you?”
    “As for that,” said Richard, “I have given a list to Anny. Anny is my wife, you know.”
    He stopped and swallowed and his Adam’s apple moved up and down; then for the first time he looked Rubashov full in the face. Rubashov saw that he had inflamed eyes; the slightly prominent eyeballs were covered by a net of red veins; his chin and cheeks were stubbly over the black collar of the Sunday suit. “Anny was arrested last night, you know,” he said and looked at Rubashov, and Rubashov read in his eyes the dull, childish hope that he, the Courier of the Central Committee, would work a miracle and help him.
    “Really?” said Rubashov and rubbed his pince-nez on his sleeve. “So the police have got the whole