Darkness at Noon

At the start of Chapter 12, Rubashov is almost delirious from hunger and nicotine withdrawal. His tooth aches and he shivers as he paces his cell with his blanket wrapped around him. He suspects that his right eye-tooth has a broken root and resolves to tell the prison doctor about it when he sees him. Overcome by memories, he continues to mull over the problem presented by the Party, whose “principles were right,” but whose “results were wrong” (59). He recalls a photograph of “the delegates to the first congress of the Party,” who sit together at a long table, “bearded and earnest” (59). No. 1 is included in this photograph, as is Rubashov himself. Rubashov describes them as “militant philosophers” who were “preparing the greatest revolution in human history” (60).

Rubashov’s agitated mind turns to thoughts of Little Loewy, whom he met in Belgium two years after his first arrest. He recalls how he was imprisoned and tortured for two years but was ultimately released and returned to his home country because they were unable to prove his guilt. He recalls meeting with No. 1, above whose head hung a portrait of the Party’s first leader—“the Old Man” (61), now deceased—with an empty space next to it where the photograph of “the numbered heads” of the Party delegates used to be. Rubashov notes that many of those “numbered heads” are gone and that those who remain are unrecognizable as their former selves; he asks to be assigned abroad again. The next day he leaves for Belgium and his meeting with Little Loewy.

Like Richard, the “slightly hunchbacked” (60) Little Loewy does not know Rubashov’s true motives for meeting with him, though unlike his comrades in the dock-workers’ section of the Party, he does know Rubashov’s true identity. Little Loewy is extremely popular, and Rubashov recalls that he “liked him at once” (62). They spend the night together in a café, where Little Loewy tells Rubashov his life story; Rubashov does not want to hear it but listens anyway. Little Loewy’s story is one of his betrayal by the Party in southern Germany, after which he bounced back and forth, in exile, between France and Belgium, spending time in jail in both countries before being kicked out and told never to return. During this itinerant time, he learns to catch and kill feral cats with his bare hands in order to sell their pelts and make enough money to survive without friends or identity papers. 

When Rubashov asks why Little Loewy is telling him his story, he says that it is “instructive” and “typical” and that “the best of us have been crushed in that way” (67). Little Loewy’s story seems to end happily, though: he ends up serving jail time with a dock-worker, Paul, who gets Little Loewy papers and a reintroduction into the Party. Rubashov knows that Little Loewy’s story cannot end there, given that his purpose is to secure the dock workers’ help in transporting supplies to a country under boycott for its aggression in Africa. Though it is against their principles, Little Loewy agrees to secure their support. Nonetheless, he and his fellow leaders are expelled from the Party; Little Loewy is denounced, and soon after hangs himself.

The memory of Little Loewy increases Rubashov’s shivering and toothache, and at the start of Chapter 13, he lies awake until dawn, “all the association centers of his brain […] sore and inflamed” (75). He falls asleep for a few hours, is awakened by the bugle, and then taken to the prison doctor. The doctor confirms Rubashov’s own diagnosis—that “the root of the right eye-tooth is broken off” (78)—and he offers to extract the tooth without anesthetic. Rubashov declines the offer and is taken back to his cell where he sleeps until lunch, when he is finally served a meal. His toothache lessens and he hopes it will resolve itself.

Chapter 14 is set three days after Rubashov’s visit to the doctor and narrates his first “examination” with Ivanov. At eleven o’clock, the warder escorts Rubashov to the administrative department of the prison, where he meets his “old college friend and former battalion commander” (80), Ivanov. When Ivanov offers him a cigarette, Rubashov recalls the long-ago conversation they had following the amputation of Ivanov’s right leg, when Rubashov had refused to supply him with the means to commit suicide. The examination begins in earnest when Ivanov notes Rubashov’s grammatical separation of himself and the Party in his question: “Did I arrest you or did you people arrest me?” (82). This “grammatical change to the first person singular” (83) goes against the ideology of the Party and is sufficient, Ivanov notes, to condemn Rubashov to death. 

However, Ivanov does not want Rubashov to be shot, so the hearing continues. Rubashov sees a “light patch” (83) on the wall of Ivanov’s office and realizes that it marks the absence of the photograph of “the bearded heads and the numbered names” of the Party founders (83). When Ivanov’s head blocks Rubashov’s view of the light patch, Rubashov recalls Richard and his blocked view of the Pietà: his toothache comes back with a shock of pain. He thinks to himself, “Now I am paying” (83), and the thought fills him with a “peaceful stillness” (83) that allows him to speak critically about the Party at great length. When Rubashov’s speech is finished, Ivanov asks him when he first joined an oppositional organization. Rubashov denies ever having done so, and Ivanov responds by reviewing Rubashov’s actions over the past several years, starting in 1933. Ivanov’s review reminds Rubashov, again, of Richard and Little Loewy, while also introducing yet a few more historical details: the first purging of the opposition happened when Rubashov was imprisoned in Germany, and the second occurred after Little Loewy’s death and included the execution of another person close to Rubashov, his secretary Arlova. 

Ivanov reminds Rubashov that his declaration of loyalty to the Party during the second purge is what sealed Arlova’s fate. Rubashov’s toothache returns and grows worse as Ivanov continues. Rubashov begs him to stop, but Ivanov continues, noting that during a third purge of the opposition in the previous year, Rubashov was named by someone on trial, and that Rubashov had again publicly pledged allegiance to the Party just six months before. He observes that Rubashov’s public declarations are not surprising, given that they were politically expedient, but that his denial of ever having joined the opposition does not make logical sense. Ivanov asks Rubashov whether he “really expect[s]” him to believe that he has never participated in oppositional activities and whether he “really want[s]” him to believe that he denied Arlova to save himself (90). Rubashov does not respond.

Ivanov then tells Rubashov that one of the charges brought against him is that he planned an attempt on No. 1’s life; as proof they have the confession of an unnamed accomplice. He then blows cigarette smoke in Rubashov’s face and promises not to help him commit suicide, explaining that instead, they will “concoct a nice little confession” (93) in which Rubashov will admit to joining an oppositional organization but not to planning the assassination of No. 1. The object is to ensure that Rubashov’s case goes to public trial. If his case is handled administratively, he will be summarily shot, like many of the men in the photograph missing from Ivanov’s wall. Rubashov rejects Ivanov’s proposition, but Ivanov gives him two weeks to reconsider. Part One ends with Rubashov being returned to his cell.