I ought really to be thinking over the coming encounter with Comrade Butte. I call him Comrade ironically; as he calls me, ironically, Comrade Anna. Last week I said to him, furious about something: ‘Comrade Butte, do you realize that if by some chance we had both been Russian communists, you would have had me shot years ago?’ ‘Yes, Comrade Anna, that seems to me more than likely.’ (This particular joke is characteristic of the Party in this period.) Meanwhile, Jack sat and smiled at us both behind his round spectacles. He enjoys my fights with Comrade Butte. After John Butte had left, Jack said: ‘There’s one thing you don’t take into account, that you might very well have been the one to order the shooting of John Butte.’ This remark came close to my private nightmare, and to exorcize it I joked: ‘My dear Jack, the essence of my position is that I am essentially the one to be shot — this is, traditionally, my role.’ ‘Don’t be too sure, if you’d known John Butte in the ‘thirties you wouldn’t be so ready to cast him in the role of a bureaucratic executioner.’ ‘And anyway, that isn’t the point.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘Stalin’s been dead nearly a year, and nothing has changed.’ ‘A great deal has changed.’ ‘They’re letting people out of prison; nothing is being done to change the attitudes that put them there.’ ‘They’re considering changing the law.’ ‘The legal system’s being changed this way and that way’ll do nothing to change the spirit I’m talking about.’ After a moment he nodded. ‘Quite possibly, but we don’t know.’ He was examining me, mildly. I’ve often wondered if this mildness, this detachment, which makes it possible for us to have these conversations, is a sign of a broken personality; the sell-out most people make at some time or another; or whether it is a self-effacing strength. I don’t know. I do know that Jack is the only person in the Party with whom I can have this kind of discussion. Some weeks ago I told him I was thinking of leaving the Party, and he replied in jest: ‘I’ve been in the Party thirty years, and sometimes I think I and John Butte will be the only people, of the thousands I’ve known, who will remain in it.’ ‘Is that a criticism of the Party or of the thousands who have left?’ ‘Of the thousands who have left, naturally,’ he said, laughing. Yesterday he said: ‘Well, Anna, if you are going to leave the Party, please give me the usual month’s notice, because you’re very useful and I shall need time to replace you.’