Stig understands it all, and the fresher air he is drinking in revives him so that he becomes himself again. Without hesitation he goes over to the young man, who cannot avoid him since he is flattened against the wall, and says, ‘What are you doing here?’

No answer.

What struggle is going on in this man drawing back into the shadow? Whatever it may be, he was about to go into the soft quiet darkness with the safe, comfortable resting-places behind the walls that shut everything out.

Stig acts without considering whether he has any right to do so; he is so appalled by what he has just seen. He seizes the young man by the jacket and drags him out into the poor light of the passage.

‘I asked whether you were thinking of going in?’

No answer.

Stig looks at his face intently. And recognizes him.

‘Martin the stamp collector,’ he says, in such a way that the other can no longer hope to remain a stranger.

He reddens when his name is spoken.

‘And now you’re here. Have you sunk as low as this?’

Martin cannot answer. Stig attempts to find out how matters stand but cannot read his face. His expression is merely frightened and tense.

‘You were going in here!’ asserts Stig, without the slightest sympathy for this mute. ‘Weren’t you safe enough where you were already? One would have thought so.’

Anger, or something resembling it, flits across Martin’s face, as if he would like to say that Stig has no business meddling in his affairs.

Stig sneers when he sees this expression.

‘Maybe you think I know nothing about it? Shall I tot up everything you’ve built around yourself to make sure you won’t get involved? We know all about people like you. We’ve warned you too. And now here you are. Don’t you know what’s inside? Get away from here!’

His voice becomes more and more threatening. He is full of dread, yet angry. The young man turns pale. Stig seizes him by the arm as if he were a disobedient child. Paralysed with shame he lets Stig do so.

‘Don’t ever come here again!’ says Stig, hurling Martin away from him and out into the passage. A passer-by stares at him in astonishment but hurries on.

Stig watches Martin skulking into the shadow on the other side. What will he do now? I expect he’ll go in. He’ll come back again as soon as the coast is clear, and then he’ll slip inside.

Stig is still trembling from the horror of being inside with those inert bodies, those featureless faces.

The corridors are at least familiar. And the house is cracking. Stig listens. Yes, thank God, I can hear the house cracking. He looks towards the end of the corridor where the arrows stream in their bewitched dance, and feels the will to resist flowing in him after all. The pressure from the stifled house is arching above him. The windows are blind. But courage is flowing in his veins once more.