He listens to the cracking, to the pressure, a deep, low buzzing through the immense, bewitched house. But above all he listens to the door of his room, in case someone is tapping on it, warning him.

Three sharp taps. They can be heard on the doors now and then, sometimes here, sometimes there, a warning from the people who are active in the cellars, that you must come out and join them, that they need your help. Martin knows what it means. He knows he can expect it at any moment. Three sharp taps on the door – and then out!

I won’t, he thinks. If they tap at this door it’ll be by mistake. It has nothing to do with me. I’m too deeply involved in all this.

He looks at his stamps again.

I must work and not think about this nonsense any more. I’m wasting precious time.

But soon he is listening once more. This muffled, threatening cracking – what is it? As if the house were straining at every joint. You could imagine that out of doors it would have looked as if the house were swaying backwards and forwards, gaping cracks appearing in the foundations. As if now, now the endless tension must snap.

But it doesn’t collapse. It stands. There probably wouldn’t have been anything to see from outside, anyway. Only an immense, complex house standing there, solitary and silent.

Martin listens. No three taps on the door. But he ought to be certain they would never come, that’s the point. His thoughts go to a safer room, a room that nobody would find if they wanted to tap on his door.

Why should they try to force me like this? he thinks, getting a little angry. Obviously it’s a question of force, I’ve seen that for myself. People should leave each other alone.

He tries to silence the nagging voice with all kinds of advice, but it will not fall silent; it remains, throbbing and smarting, and he is forced, reluctantly, to think about those who are to blame.

Sometimes his mood changes. The thought of those three taps is the reason. It arouses a fascination in him for the people he is afraid of and is trying to hide from. He becomes one of their comrades.

Here we are, he thinks.

Nobody can escape this, so here we shall stay; but here we are, and there are countless rooms in this house, and we have something to do in every corner of it, prising out the people hiding away in their cubbyholes.

Listen to the three taps!

Come out!

Yes, he has been waiting for it impatiently, and he comes out. There they stand, irresolute and full of doubt. They have knocked on his door but are uncertain.

‘Come along!’ he says to them. ‘Follow me!’

‘We will,’ they say, their eyes lighting up.

‘Let’s go to the centre.’

‘Let’s go to the centre,’ they echo. ‘But you’re going first, aren’t you, Martin?’