Darkness at Noon

Part Four opens with Vassilij, the porter in Rubashov’s building, listening to his daughter Vera Wassiljovna read aloud the newspaper article about Rubashov’s trial while he lies in bed with his face to the wall. Over his bed hangs the portrait of No. 1 with an empty space next to it where Rubashov’s photograph used to hang. In a hidden hole in his bed is the empty space were his Bible used to be, before his daughter found it and threw it away, just as she threw away his photograph of Rubashov. As Vassilij listens to the account of the trial, which proceeds in the way that Gletkin prescribed, he recalls Rubashov’s more triumphant times, quoting biblical passages that he remembers by heart in response to the narration of the trial.

Vera Wassiljovna asks him what he is mumbling when he recites these passages, but he does not answer, knowing that even with his own daughter he is not safe. He signs the resolution she has brought home from work that calls for Rubashov’s death, but eventually is provoked to speak up, exclaiming that “cleverness and decency are at loggerheads, and whoever sides with one must do without the other” (254). While his daughter reads the end of the article, Vassilij falls asleep, until she reads the last words of the accused, Kieffer and Rubashov. Kieffer begs for his life, while Rubashov states that he is dying for “absolute nothingness” (256) and that in the end, he at least refused to “make it easy” (256) on himself and “die in silence” (256). He declares that his “account with history is settled” (256) and that he asks for nothing more. The two accused are sentenced to death, and the chapter ends with Vassilij’s words: “Thy will be done. Amen” (256).

Chapter 2 returns to Rubashov on the day of his sentencing and execution. He is back in his cell and he feels peaceful—“quiet, within and without” (257). He recalls wanting to speak up at his trial, to try, one last time, to elicit pity for himself, but he resists the momentary temptation, realizing it was “too late. […] Words could undo nothing” (258). His peace is the result of his belief that he has “paid” and that he can now be truly alone in the “first person singular” (258-259). He taps out “I” on the wall that separates him from No. 406, who is no longer there to hear him: “The knocking died without resonance” (259). 

He continues pacing his cell, mulling over the meaning of suffering and the difference between senseless suffering—“all suffering with a social origin” (259)—and suffering that made sense—that was “rooted in biological fatality” (259). He realizes that the diminishment of one demands the increase of the other, which is only justified in the abstract. When applied to the individual, the “principle led to absurdity” (260). He finds, as well, that the questions he had as a child have not been answered by his life’s work or by his “silent partner” (260), that the “real source of his guilt” was that he did not consider “the infinite” (262), and that “[p]erhaps it was not suitable for a man to think every though to its logical conclusion” (263).

Night falls and Rubashov continues to pace, realizing that perhaps the “mistake in the system” was the “precept, that the end justifies the means” (265), which has us “sailing without ethical ballast” (265). His preoccupation with these questions ends when he hears drumming from the down the corridor.

Chapter 3 narrates the executions of Hare-lip and Rubashov, in that order. No. 402 gives Rubashov the news that they are escorting Hare-lip to his death, and Rubashov watches him as he passes by his door.  After the drumming fades, No. 402 tells Rubashov that Hare-lip “behaved quite well” and then asks how he is feeling, making conversation to make the wait easier for Rubashov. They talk about what Rubashov would do if he was to be pardoned, and No. 402 advises him to empty his bladder before he is taken from his cell. Rubashov asks No. 402 about his own plans, and he says he has eighteen years left on his sentence. Their conversation is cut off when No. 402 gets word that the officers are approaching Rubashov’s cell. Rubashov thanks No. 402, who responds by saying that he envies Rubashov.

Rubashov is marched to the cellar in too-tight handcuffs. He bends forward to see better when descending the stairs, and his pince-nez fall from his face and smash on the ground. He is “now nearly blind, but he had solid ground under his feet again” (270). He realizes that his toothache has been gone since his trial. He is wondering whether there really is a Promised Land when a “dull blow struck the back of his head” (271). He falls to the floor and it is dark, and he begins to dream, again, of his first arrest. He sees his executioner bending over him but cannot make out who he is. Then, a “second, smashing blow hit him on the ear [and…] all became quiet” (272). Rubashov’s death is described as the wave of a sea coming to lift him up.