‘Has it worsened, then?’ asks the man who holds this extraordinary and impossible office.

Stig answers readily: ‘Yes, the things we are ordered to do get gradually worse. But that’s the way it must go, I suppose, if there’s to be an end of it.’

The other man nods. ‘I suppose it must,’ he agrees, ‘however distressing it is to see it happening.’

Stig can tell that he still has a supporter. It gives him encouragement. It seems to him that in reality he ought to stand steadily enough on his own, but it is still reassuring to get this man to say certain things. It is the effect of his office, and of the responsibility he has assumed – as a man who has been ordained to preach a gospel that is perplexing and would destroy them in a night such as the one that prevails now.

‘I can tell you’re of the same way of thinking,’ says Stig. ‘That’s what I wanted to come and hear.’

‘Had you need of it?’

‘Yes,’ says Stig.

The austere face manages a smile.

‘Well well, so it’s like that is it?’

Behind him at this moment he must feel all that he is supposed to be the spokesman for. He is many years older than Stig and can use this advantage to smile over such admissions.

But Stig is no child either. He is mature, and he says at once, and sharply: ‘It’s nothing to smile about, it seems to me.’

The face hastily becomes serious.

‘No. All I meant was that you don’t like standing alone either, and I was smiling with pleasure at that. Believe me, I have nothing else to smile about just now.’

‘I can well believe it,’ replies Stig. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve ever been as perplexed as you must be.’

The clergyman does not reply. He is bowed down under the burden of office. Everyone who comes here touches on this, whether he intends to or not.

‘I’m not really so perplexed,’ he says, steeling himself to face up to whatever Stig may be going to say.

‘You’re not?’ says Stig. ‘I’ve always thought it must be immensely difficult. And I’m sure it is. But I understand that you must – just as I must – only think about one thing. But much worse for you, I thought, in your position.’

The clergyman asks: ‘Why are you saying this?’

Stig looks straight into his eyes.

‘I know it’s painful to be reminded of this. I know things are uncertain enough already. Yet I want to talk about it. You’ll have to take it along with the rest. I must see where you stand. How much or how little you are perplexed. We have need of it, in the work we’re doing. And in those circumstances we get used to disregarding what may be hurtful.’

‘I understand that,’ answers the other man.

There he sits with his particular burden; and Stig is sitting with him and loves him. Stig knows very well how firmly these men, like this one here, have stood; how the paralysing beams from the centre were directed at them and were repelled. Stig, who has moved about the house so much, knows how important this has been. But it must be repeated continually. It is not enough that it has happened once. They must step forward constantly and join in, with the enormous power that lies behind them. There’s need of it in what we’re doing, says Stig, and he knows what he’s talking about.