He has told Karen this, and she bent her head and accepted it. But she was hurt, as if she were thinking: Surely he must know her? So he must realize she is to be trusted completely? She stands before him with her hurt love that demands, or at any rate expects, a tiny exception to be made this time, in these words: Since it’s you and me. What have we not shared, the two of us?

There’s nothing for it but to harden oneself. A small part of a great whole. One must follow blindly what is imposed and demanded: the conviction that this house shall stand.

She says: ‘I believe you’re mixed up in more danger than you’ll admit. I’ve heard…’

‘What have you heard?’ he says sharply, without meaning it. It is simply because he is so tense.

‘I’ve heard rumours,’ she replies, confused. ‘Nothing really. Just that you were mixed up in dangerous things.’

‘Pay no attention to what you hear,’ he says harshly.

He realizes how senseless it is for her to hear about his work through guesswork and gossip instead of being told by him straightforwardly, but it can’t be helped. In his involvement consideration for his battling comrades must be the first commandment. Every word that leaks out may mean the end for someone in this grim game.

‘Would you rather I ignored this whole struggle and everything that’s going on around us?’ he asks in order to give them both strength. ‘There are quite a few like that,’ he adds.

She has been thinking about it, he can see. The desire for Rascal’s home to remain undisturbed and orderly has certainly tempted her many a time.

But she has overcome it by now. She says: ‘No, I don’t want that. Things wouldn’t be right here at home, then, would they?’

She takes hold of him, in order to have a little of him in her hands, and says curtly: ‘You mustn’t be any different.’

But all the same he knows she wishes he would include her in his secret work.

Rascal arrives, and so he gets out of discussing this difficult topic any more. Rascal knows nothing. Father goes far into the house and works in a warehouse, that’s all Rascal knows. If he asks whether he may go too, he gets a friendly no, and he has resigned himself to it. Father has to go out at all hours of the day because the stores demand it: goods are sent at all times. Rascal has accepted this without suspicion. The big briefcase Father carries is full of papers that have to do with the warehouse. Rascal has been allowed to look inside it, so he knows. Usually the big heavy briefcase is locked so that nobody may look in.

Stig is thinking about Karen and Rascal as he walks. Such thoughts seldom leave him: It would have been better to be alone, not to have the two of them to think about and worry over, supposing anything should happen, not to have to think about what would become of them then.