Then comes the thought, as if to save him, sitting there on the bench: It can’t have been him after all. My son is still a child, a schoolboy. That one must be grown up. Mine is only a schoolboy with a satchel.

This helps him to find his feet again. He has been aroused and can think, and can remember a little about his son. But then he tells himself: What do I know about it really? I’ve no idea how long I’ve been imprisoned here. The time has passed me by in a stupor, and seemed endless. I’m completely confused about time. It must have been my son after all, since it gave me such a shock. He must be almost grown up and has been arrested for something. And now he’s being taken to the wall.

The forgotten man is cold with shock once more. It is dark, but he is not allowed to put the light on himself. It comes on when someone turns a switch outside. He fumbles in the dark, telling himself that it was his son.

But at the same time as this has bewildered him, it has roused him from his stupor, out of the grey, endless misery in which no thought existed. He uses his senses, and is more aware than he has been for a very long time. And he notices a knocking on the outer wall, on the partition or in the floor, and in a strangely urgent rhythm.

Something is being said.

He has heard this so many times and merely remained in his lethargy, not man enough to pay any attention to it. He was taught to interpret it by a young man who had been imprisoned with him for a while at the very beginning. But not long afterwards he found himself in this depression where everything vanished. He is only aware that there has often been thudding and knocking at night, as well as tramping and other noises.

Now here it is again.

And now someone is going to die. That’s the message they’re knocking out along the wall.

What are they saying? He would give anything to be able to interpret it, but it is no use. He has no idea. Only that it concerns someone who is going to die, he is certain of that. And that his son is among the others.

He stretches out on the bench in despair. Is there anything to be heard up at the window? At once he is on his feet, stretching up to look out. But there is only the dark wall in front of it. He cannot see down to the ground nor upwards.

But this is the centre. He knows that. It is night, now as always, and the night arches above this terrible place in the centre of the house.

And that was my son.

Listen, the knocking on the walls is for him. The last feverish minutes before he is to leave on his last journey.