Stig mutters grudgingly. He has need of deep sleep if he could only find peace for his shattered body.

‘Tell me,’ begs the forgotten man. ‘Tell me!’ he repeats threateningly. It is of such importance to him he has to threaten this person whom he scarcely dare look at.

Stig drags himself back. Opens his eyes. He answers unwillingly: ‘I expect you’re being kept here because they don’t want anyone to see you. That’s what happens to some of them. That’s why they never let you out of this room. They don’t want anyone to see what they’ve done to you.’

As he is speaking he studies this pathetic creature with the wild beseeching eyes and unkempt beard, wondering what may be left in him. There is a spark blinking there that seems to strike one on the forehead.

The prisoner has got wind of something, and asks in distress: ‘Why is no one to see me?’

‘I told you. Because it doesn’t suit them for people to see what they’re doing here. But don’t think about it any more. You will get out. And then we’ll spruce you up again, you’ll see.’

The forgotten man does not take in the part about sprucing him up. He does not think so much about that sort of thing any more.

‘When will I get out?’ asks the man who thinks he is Swineson. He asks without interest, as if he cannot muster any enthusiasm for such a hope.

Stig makes a gesture. ‘When all this is swept away!’ he begins, looking about him.

He says it just as much to himself. And he cannot keep back a tremor of regret that he will not be alive to take part in it. This knowledge is bitter. But he is inside the walls in the centre and will most certainly die within a few hours. After they have tried to put a little more pressure on him.

‘It will have been swept away,’ he says, ‘when you get out.’

The forgotten man does not answer. Stig has this quality of fascination again, it seems to him, and he lets it enfold him like a gift. Above everything this person must stay with him here. That is the most important thing.

Stay here! he wishes.

‘Are you going to stay here?’ he asks respectfully.

Stig’s face darkens. ‘No.’

The prisoner turns cold.

‘Aren’t you going to stay here with me?’

‘No, I don’t expect I’ll be staying for long. I’ll have to go back to them again. They only threw me in here for a while because it was no use going on any longer, I expect. And because it’s so full up everywhere.’

The prisoner does not understand what Stig is talking about. He only realizes that Stig is not going to stay.

‘You must stay,’ he says imploringly. ‘There’s so much to hear and to see,’ he adds, as if tempting him. ‘Last night the stones were trembling,’ he insists, ‘the knocking came right through them all. That’s how it is.’