Darkness at Noon: The First Hearing: 6 Summary & Analysis

The warder regularly peers into Rubashov’s room. At 7 a.m. the bugle sounds, then cedes to silence. He knows he’s in an isolation cell, so he’ll hear nothing of the other prisoners, and he will stay there until he gets shot. He keeps repeating this fact to himself, while still feeling warm and comfortable under his blanket.

Rubashov says to himself that he’s the last of the old guard, about to be destroyed. He tries to recall the faces of the Chairman of the International and the second Prime Minister, both already executed. Rubashov tells himself, without much conviction, that history will rehabilitate him.

Rubashov can’t bring himself to hate No. 1—the only name that’s stuck for the leader—though he’s often tried. No. 1’s power lies in the possibility that he is right (which No. 1 has forced all those he has killed to affirm). These people can only place their hope in the “mocking oracle” of History, which may (though may not) eventualy absolve them long after their deat.

Rubashov feels that he’s being watched: a minute later the warder enters and asks why Rubashov hasn’t gotten up. Rubashov says he’s sick with a toothache, and he’s left alone. He’s bored and has a sudden craving for a newspaper, though he realizes his arrest won’t be in it for a while, even if the sensational news leaks out abroad. He wonders what’s going on in No. 1’s mind, and then he realizes that he’s been pacing up and down the cell without realizing it, thinking about No. 1 sitting and dictating at his desk.

Rubashov tries to picture a cross-section of the leader’s brain and can’t manage it: this is why history is more an oracle than a science, he thinks. Perhaps in the future teachers will point to an algebraic function that connects the masses’ life conditions to a diagram of No. 1’s brain. Until then politics will remain mere superstition.

Rubashov hears marching steps outside, and he waits for the scream that will indicate torture. He knows that people all end up behaving the same way—the screams become whining and choking—and he tells himself that he won’t scream. But instead of a scream, he hears a clanging and he sees, through a spy-hole, the men stop at No. 407 across from him, handing out bread. Rubashov continues pacing up and down, thinking of the man’s thin arms and curved hands. The arms and hands were all he could see of the man and they seemed eerily familiar.