Darkness at Noon

In Chapter 6, Rubashov witnesses his former roommate in exile, Michael Bogrov, being led to his execution. On No. 402’s instructions, he stands at his spy-hole and drums on his door, as do the other prisoners, forming an “acoustic chain” (143). First he hears Bogrov’s “moaning and whimpering” (144) and then sees him, a pathetic figure dragged between two officers. When Bogrov is out of sight but before he is out of earshot, Rubashov thinks he Bogrov call his name. Then silence falls, and No. 406 taps out his familiar phrase, “ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH” (145). Witnessing Bogrov being led to his death causes Rubashov to imagine Arlova’s death, wondering if she too had whimpered and been dragged. He feels nauseated, even though “he had never doubted the logical rightness of his behavior” (145).

At the start of Chapter 7, Rubashov falls asleep after Bogrov’s execution and dreams of his first arrest again. When he wakes up, he is disoriented, trying to remember where he is, and finds Ivanov is there in the cell with him. Rubashov’s toothache has caused the right side of his face to swell up, and Ivanov offers him brandy. Ivanov says he wants to talk with Rubashov, and Rubashov lashes out, angry about having witnessed Bogrov’s death march, and demands that Ivanov leave his cell. Ivanov refuses. He tells Rubashov that Bogrov’s death march was Gletkin’s doing; that Bogrov was told of Rubashov’s presence and taken past his cell. Ivanov objects to such tactics, because the “scene with Bogrov must only intensify [Rubashov’s] depression and moralistic leanings” (150), while Ivanov wants Rubashov to follow the “whole thing to a [logical] conclusion” (151). He asks Rubashov whether he will “capitulate” if he can be convinced of its logical rightness. Rubashov is unable to answer, but he realizes that his “consciousness of guilt, which Ivanov called ‘moral exaltation’ […] could not be expressed in logical formula—it lay in the realm of the ‘grammatical fiction’” (152). Instead, they talk about why Bogrov was executed—he advocated for large submarines while No. 1 and the Party decided small submarines were best.

Ivanov continues by calling “[s]ympathy, conscience, disgust, despair, repentance, and atonement” (155) a “repellent debauchery” (155) and naming Gandhi and Tolstoy some of the “greatest criminals in history” (156). Rubashov recognizes the substance of Ivanov’s argument, one he has made himself many times. He is no longer convinced by it, however, because he has “experienced the ‘grammatical fiction’ as a physical reality in his own body” (157). Rubashov stops listening to Ivanov, fascinated by the question of whether he would sacrifice Arlova again, now that he’s experienced the “grammatical fiction,” as “it seemed to contain the answer to all other questions” (158).

Reflecting on the question of Arlova prompts Rubashov to mention Raskolnikov, a character from Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment. Ivanov calls him “childish or senile,” but Rubashov argues that Raskolnikov’s murder of the old woman, while logical in itself, causes an “unforeseeable and illogical consequence” (158) and that “Raskolnikov discovers that twice two are not four when the mathematical units are human beings” (158-159). Ivanov responds by saying that all copies of that book should be burned and that the “principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics” (159).

Their discussion continues, with Ivanov taking the Machiavellian perspective and Rubashov the humanist. Ivanov answers every one of Rubashov’s objections with a brutally logical counter-argument, and calls Rubashov’s incipient humanism “[m]oral cowardice” (166). When Ivanov leaves, Rubashov “knew that he had already half-surrendered” (166); he feels relieved of the burden of his conscience. His toothache has eased and he sleeps dreamlessly. Ivanov visits Gletkin’s office on his way back to his own and tells Gletkin that Rubashov will sign his confession tomorrow. Gletkin does not agree, saying that Rubashov has no backbone. Ivanov tells him he should be shot and leaves the office. Gletkin is worried that Ivanov is correct about Rubashov and about Ivanov’s threat.