Darkness at Noon: The First Hearing: 12 Summary & Analysis

Rubashov feels sicker as the day goes on. He’s overwhelmed by memories of the movement and the Party. He circles around his desperate desire for a cigarette, and the idea that he will pay. His past, present, and future belong to the Party, but this past is suddenly in question: the body of the Party suddenly seems to be covered in festering sores and stigmata. If the Party embodies history’s will, he thinks, history is defective. He tells himself he must find the cause of this defectiveness: how wrong results could come from right principles. How could the people hate them, when they brought truth to their mouths?

Rubashov thinks of a photo of the first Party congress, where each delegate sat around a long wooden table (No. 1 at the lower end) looking like a provincial town council meeting, though they were preparing history’s greatest revolution. All militant philosophers, the delegates dreamed of ruling over the people in order to wean them off from being ruled. Now only two or three survive, along with himself and No. 1.

Rubashov thinks of another person who died on his watch—Little Loewy in the old Belgian port, hunchbacked, smoking a pipe. It was two years after the affair with Richard and Rubashov’s own arrest: Rubashov had kept silent through the torture, denying everything coldly. He’d never been surprised at the hatred of his torturers: the dictatorship could prove nothing against him, and finally he was released and sent home, where there were jubilant parades and receptions. Nonetheless, half the men in that photo were no longer alive: the others are no longer bearded, now melancholic rather than joyful.

After two weeks, Rubashov, still on crutches, had asked for a new mission abroad. No. 1 had noticed he was eager to leave, but had sent him to Belgium, where he met Little Loewy, the local leader of the dockworkers’ Party section. Rubashov took a liking to him, and was impressed by the organization of the group. At night they drank together with the other dockworkers. Little Loewy had introduced him only as a “comrade from Over there,” but once someone remarked that he looked much like Rubashov.

Later, alone, Little Loewy had told Rubashov about his life, how he was born in southern Germany before the Dictatorship came to power. Once, when the Party was in need of weapons, he helped steal away arms from the police station, arms which were later found in another town during a search of another Party member. The next day Little Loewy vanished: the Party had promised him a passport and papers, but the messenger from higher up who was supposed to pass these things to him had never appeared.

Little Loewy managed to cross the border, but he was arrested in France. The Party there, unaware of his former role, told him he’d have to make inquiries in his native country. He kept wandering and was eventually arrested and sentenced to three months imprisonment. In prison he lectured his mate about the Party Congress. After the three months he was taken to the Belgian border and released, ordered never to return. The Belgian Party didn’t want to help him either, so, in due course, he was arrested and imprisoned again. Over the next year he was passed back and forth between the French and Belgian authorities. He had begun to participate in the cat trade, selling their skins for bread and tobacco, but now he began to spit blood and have nightmares about cats. After another year, all Party members who could have vouched for him were dead, disappeared, or in prison. The Party said they could do nothing for him.

Rubashov asked why Little Loewy was telling him this; he said it’s instructive—the Party is growing more fossilized. Rubashov thought about what he could add to that, but stayed silent. Little Loewy recalled that during one prison sentence he was given an ex-wrestler Paul, a dock worker, as cell mate: he was the Administrative Secretary of the Dockers’ Section of the Party. When they were released, Paul got papers and worked to reintegrate Lowey. Afterwards, Loewy forgot his anger at the bureaucrats.

Rubashov wished he could believe that all would end well, but he knew why Little Loewy was sent to Belgium. He looked at him oddly, then felt ill and stood to go. A week later Little Loewy would hang himself.

Two years earlier, the Party had ordered a political and economic boycott of the new dictatorship at the heart of Europe. The dock workers in the Belgian port, who were all loyal to the Party, joined in by striking, refusing to unload goods from the boycotted country. Then a fleet of five cargo boats arrived in port, each printed with the name of a Revolutionary leader in the alphabet from “over there.” The dockworkers unloaded it, but then realized that the cargo held rare minerals for the war industry of the boycotted country. At a meeting, people began to fight, the police proclaimed neutrality to let them implode, and eventually the Party leadership ordered the end of the strike. While they gave explanations about the decision, few were convinced.

After two years, another dictatorship in southern Europe (presumably Italy) began imperial campaigns in Africa. The Party again called for trade sanctions, this time of raw materials, vital to the aggressor. Rubashov was sent to Belgium to prepare the dockworkers for the arrival of another Russian fleet, carrying petrol for the aggressor—another example of the Party acting contrary to its stated policy.

On the second day Rubashov began a meeting in the Party offices, which were untidy and ugly, as they were all over the world. He spoke for a time about the hypocrisy and greed of European nations that had made the boycott fail: now they were willing to let the Revolutionary country go poor if they weren’t able to sell petrol. Paul and the other hands nodded, not understanding the practical implications: Little Loewy exchanged a quick glance with another man.

Then the man, a writer, asked if it always must be themselves, the lowly workers, who have to deal with “your little transactions.” The dockhands are surprised, but Rubashov is ready and says it’s politically and geographically useful. The dockhands slowly realize what’s going on, and finally Rubashov says that the five cargo boats are arriving the next day. Everyone is silent: then Paul stands up, throws his hat down, and leaves. Rubashov says that the interests of industrial development Over There come before all else. A docker replies that they must give the example: the Party talks of solidarity, but then secretly breaks its own policy for its own benefit, while expecting the dockworkers to fall into line. Little Loewy, pale, salutes Rubashov and says quietly that this is also his opinion. He asks who else would like to speak, then closes the meeting. The events continue as expected: the cargo arrives, the leaders of the dockers’ section are expelled from the Party and Little Loewy denounced; three days later Little Loewy kills himself.