Stig cannot stop picturing this fellow who went so gaily to his task of destruction, which is bound to take lives. Opponents’ lives, but others as well for all he knows.

I must never do it again, he thinks. It’s like a tarnish upon our work.

Sometimes orders of a different kind come down into these cellars: someone has been condemned by a secret court and must be done away with. Then comes the order to do so. It has not yet fallen to these four, but one never knows when it will come. In that case they must draw lots to decide who is to go. In that case it will be a relief that that fellow Stein doesn’t belong to the group. It would have been ugly to see this emotion flickering up in him, if the lot had fallen on him. And it probably would have done.

Henry raises his head as if he can hear something. They are alert to such things, they are all listening. There is no sound, but there is something all the same for those who are working in this unnatural night. It is the house. There they have it all above them. The manifold house is humming with everything living within it. You only have to listen and you will hear it. It grows louder during the long, tiring hours, becoming a great chorus up there. It cannot be called a humming, but a sonorous chorus from a cracking house, singing of all that men must endure.

4

The Arrow Polisher

The arrows out in the corridors must shine like gold. There is no rest for those who polish arrows. One of them is in these corridors too, polishing and rubbing, climbing up his little ladder to dust the blazing arrows.

He is paid well for it. His wages come to him from the centre, but he has never been in there himself. He collects his wages from an office nearby.

He feels rather lonely.

‘I’m not going to do it any more. I’m going to resign from the job,’ he will tell people he meets who stop and talk to him in the corridor. It doesn’t happen very often. The corridor is usually empty if there are arrows in it, but the arrow polisher who works here at all times of the day sees more of what goes on than the others, and some of them do not mind talking to him.

Then he cheers up. He is happy each time it happens. He looks to see whether a third person has noticed. Perhaps Stig, who hurries past so often, might notice one day. Stig more than anyone.

‘Oh, so you’re not going to do it any more?’ says the man who has stopped.

The arrow polisher mops his forehead. Stig is not in sight. But he may come.

‘No, I’m not going to work for them any more! I’ve done it long enough. I don’t care how dirty the arrows get.’