Darkness at Noon

The book opens with the prison-cell door slamming behind Rubashov, whose casual survey of his new living quarters—and how they compare with previous prison cells he’s inhabited—illustrates his familiarity with incarceration. It’s not yet dawn, and Rubashov is asleep within a few minutes of being introduced to his new bed, apparently unconcerned by his situation.

Chapter 2 backtracks from the present moment of Chapter 1, describing the recurring dream Rubashov was having when he was arrested. The dream is of an earlier arrest, and the two realities—the dream of his first arrest and actuality of his most recent one—meld, weaving together the realities of both arrests.

Chapter 3 focuses on the details of Rubashov’s arrest when he wakes from his dream. The porter in his apartment building, Vassilij, an elderly civil war veteran and Rubashov’s friend, is compelled to bring the two arresting officers to Rubashov’s door. The officers, one older and one younger, display in brief what becomes apparent later in the book—that ideological differences often take the form of generational divides. The older officer, who knows Rubashov’s history with “the Party,” is more respectful of him, while the younger officer’s brutality, while restrained, is evident.

Chapter 4 describes the half-hour drive, in an American-made car, from Rubashov’s apartment to the prison. Rubashov shares his cigarettes with the men who have arrested him, and is confronted, once again, with the aggressive ignorance of the younger officer.

Chapter 5 finds Rubashov escorted through the corridors of the “new model” prison, with its electric lights, iron galleries, whitewashed walls, and “cell doors with the name cards and the black holes of the judas-eyes” (10). Rubashov wants to believe he is still dreaming, but doing so makes him feel ashamed. He is locked into cell 404.

In Chapter 6, Rubashov awakes after two hours asleep to a 7 a.m. bugle call. Noticing that he is being held in an isolation cell, he realizes that “he was to stay there until he was shot” (12). This realization does not cause him alarm. Instead, he drowses, warm and sleepy, contemplating his feet and feeling a “warm wave of sympathy for his own body, for which he usually […] had no liking” (13). The warder arrives and asks him why he has not gotten up. Rubashov claims to have a toothache in order to be left alone, but after the warder leaves, he no longer feels content and begins the first of what will be many six-and-a-half-step walks up and down the length of his cell.

He hears “several people marching down the corridor in step” (16) and believes that guards are coming to beat him. Instead, he observes breakfast being delivered through his spy-hole. When the men stop outside No. 407, just across from Rubashov’s cell, he sees the outstretched hands of No. 407’s occupant, reaching up to receive his bread. This reminds Rubashov of something he cannot recall.

In Chapter 7, the breakfast delivery continues, but the guards skip Rubashov’s cell. When he realizes he is being left out, he protests by drumming on his cell door with his fists and then banging on it with his shoe. The bigger of the two uniformed men overseeing the food delivery, who has a “round, clean-shaven skull and expressionless eyes” (20), enters Rubashov’s cell and asks Rubashov why he has not cleaned his cell; he is subsequently told that he was not given breakfast because he reported having a toothache. His request for pencil and paper is ignored.

In Chapter 8, Rubashov resumes pacing his cell, reviewing the scene between him and the officer and considering it from the other man’s perspective. After a while, he hears a “small but persistent ticking sound” (24). He realizes that it is coming from his next-door neighbor, No. 402, who is trying to communicate with Rubashov, tapping out sequences of letters that correspond to a five-by-five grid of twenty-five letters. No. 402 asks him who he is. Rubashov gives his name, and the other prisoner is silent for a while, giving Rubashov time to imagine, with disdain, what kind of man his neighbor is. When No. 402 begins ticking again, he tells Rubashov that his imprisonment “serves him right,” and Rubashov begins to reassess No. 402, who turns out to be a “conformist” who remains loyal to the deposed ruler rather than to the Revolution or the Party.

Despite their differences and the tapped out insults they trade, the conversation moves to sex, with No. 402 asking Rubashov to remember when he last slept with a woman. Rubashov is reluctant, tapping out brief descriptions, and No. 402’s urgent pleas for more details trigger Rubashov’s recollection of what it was he was reminded of when he saw No. 407’s outstretched hands: a pen drawing of the Pietà.