The arrows flash like lightning in the murky storm, in the darkness that is seething up within him, and they glide alongside him, slender and beautiful and golden and naked, and ease his journey. Now they can reveal themselves. He knows them well, he has polished them over and over again, yet he did not know them before now. The knowledge that he is moving at top speed towards the centre seems to stab him. He shudders and walks on. And all the time he is aware of the dark closed walls on his right and on his left. The house itself. Closed and silent. But he never looks at them. Let them stare through the cracks if they want to. He is growing stronger. The arrows lend him strength. They lend him eyes to see with, thoughts to think, lend him everything he has need of in this sudden rush towards the centre. Not for nothing has he worked for them faithfully; he has earned it all, this liberation from all those wretched creatures sitting in the cellars and behind doors, sending you notes and telling you what you’re supposed to think and see. Now he is walking as he pleases. No one is going to stop him. Flash upon flash of lightning shoots through his darkness. The arrows swim around him, beautiful as young women. He stares at them wildly. The house stands silent and closed on both sides of him.

The corridor is empty. At any rate he meets no one who counts. He does not look at them. He swings his arms, but he is doing so only in his imagination; his arms are hanging straight down at his sides as if heavily weighted. His feet are dragging. Thus he walks to his destruction. All the windows are black at the edges. The night creeps into him. But he walks with his head full of flashes and sparks from the arrows, sucked towards the sorcery of the centre.

Then he blinks and stops. Or rather is stopped. A man shoots out right in front of his nose and stares at him.

‘What are you doing?’ asks a young man. To the arrow polisher it seems like a voice from his childhood.

‘You can’t go any further,’ continues the stranger. And now the arrow polisher’s mind is sufficiently clear; he no longer thinks this is a child’s voice. Nonsense. He even knows this fellow slightly. Enough to know that he is one of that lot in the cellars. What is he doing here? He ought to be looking after himself, not getting in other folk’s way. Now he has taken up the fight against them and will not waver.

‘What do you want?’ asks the man, and his voice is stern and astonished. It reminds him of the silent walls he has been walking past.

The arrow polisher is trembling. It seems as if this is the last time he will be asked, and it makes a strong impression on him.