‘Off my head?’

‘No, of course not. But lie down! Or –.’

The arm is raised again and the prisoner is forced into the corner of the bench. He cowers down. Astonishing ideas are whirling in his brain, harassing him. Off his head? Who? No, I’m not. I am, though. No! I can hear this sound striking through the stone from far away. I’m not off my head.

He lies there, cringing wretchedly, and the threatening blow is not delivered. The arm has dropped after all.

But somewhere there is a dull report. Far away and muffled. But it was a report.

‘Listen to that!’ says the forgotten man again. What is that whitening? Or darkening? What is this? He understands nothing. The shot has come.

The face that he has called the swine approaches him again, threatening him. It seems to be all coldness and harshness, and he crouches, hiding his own face against the wall without moving. He has no more strength.

As he is lying like this he hears the swine go out and lock and bolt the door. Immediately afterwards the light goes out.

He is aware that he is lying facing the stone and that it is silent. No life there.

More! he wishes.

But the stone is mute.

What are they doing now in their cells?

He listens until his ears are humming. But he cannot pick up the slightest sound. The stone is quiet and waiting as well.

Is my son dead?

It was not my son.

The darkness packs itself around him as he crouches there. But this is not the usual darkness, he realizes. It is connected with the shot out there. The darkness was in the shot.

He said I had no son. Or wasn’t that what he said? But he is so obsessed by this that he cannot be rid of it. It seemed like his son. He feels a strong need to say something about this son who was not his, but who cried no! so wildly.

After all he was somebody’s son, he thinks, trembling. What he had wanted to say is gone.

What had the swine said?

No, he thinks. Not that. I’m not out of my mind.

He seems to touch something with his foot. It is all his burning desires that have been buried in sifting dust. They are torn open in an instant, in this same tearing open of the stupor that he has fallen into. There they are again, all his prayers: Give me something, I am too poor, the empty time is killing me.

It has all gone. He cannot hear any life in the stone any more, with his limited ability for picking it up. However much he may listen, it does not reveal itself to him. He feels that there must be something there still, but he puts his ear to the stone in vain. All he can hear is a swishing or soughing from a water-pipe. Somewhere a door bangs, and somewhere there is the noise of tramping feet. Always the tramping feet.