Henri listened to the sound of his step fading away in the hall. He felt as if it were his own youth that had just appealed to him; he wouldn't have considered remaining silent for one second if he had seen, through the eyes of a young man of twenty, those millions of slaves imprisoned behind barbed wire. And Lambert had seen through him; he was hesitating. Why? He didn't want the Communists to see him as an enemy, and, more important, he would have liked to hide from himself the fact that in Russia, too, something was rotten. But all that was. nothing but cowardice. He got up and walked down the stairs. 'A Communist would have the right to choose silence,' he thought. 'His positions have been stated, and even when he lies, he's not, in a way, deceiving anyone. But I, who profess to independence, if I use my credit to stifle the truth, I'm a swindler. I'm not a Communist precisely because I want to be free to say what the Communists don't want to say and can't say. It's often a thankless role, but one whose usefulness they themselves fundamentally recognize. Certainly Lachaume, for example, would be grateful to me for speaking out — he and all those who want to see the camps abolished, but who aren't permitted to protest openly against them. And who knows? Perhaps they'll attempt something officially; perhaps pressures applied by the various Communist parties themselves will make the Soviet Union modify its penitentiary system. Oppressing men in secret and oppressing them in front of the whole world isn't the same thing. To keep my mouth shut would be defeatism; it would be both refusing to look things in the face and denying that they can be changed; it would be condemning the Soviet Union irrevocably under the guise of not judging her. If there's really no chance for her to become what she should be, then there's no longer any hope left on earth; what we do, what we say, no longer has any meaning. Yes,' Henri repeated to himself, climbing the stairway to Dubreuilh's apartment, 'either speaking out means something, or nothing means anything. We've got to speak out. And unless Dubreuilh has actually joined the Party, he must agree.' Henri rang the bell. 'But if Dubreuilh has joined, would he tell me?'