What is this?

Has he arrived?

He is looking into a pair of eyes. Yes. He sees from the eyes that he has arrived. He has no impression of his surroundings. Only a pair of piercing eyes.

He gives a start. He is being asked a question, and he answers with a nod of the head which he seems to possess for this purpose, but which he is now going to sell and will soon hand over. Something resembling such a crazy idea flashes through him, but everything in his mind now is so strange and unfamiliar. Let me go! I won’t do it.

It is only a weak lashing out. He must. He has arrived.

He is asked questions. And then he finds his voice like a normal person.

For now he finds help again unexpectedly. All of a sudden his cheek is burning from the slap in the face that Stig gave him by behaving as he did. And the threat in the note is tripled, threatening his life. And it is every man’s duty to defend his life. He is helped to feel a burning sense of justice that compels him to tell his story.

There is a rushing noise in his ears. He tells his story. Tremendous accusations.

This is a dark dream. He is confronted with Stig’s name on a piece of paper. A single, ordinary given name, spoken here in a closed room behind the stone wall. But this person who is called Stig is instantly condemned to vanish out of existence. That is what happens to those whose names are written down. Death will cleanse the house.

Stig.

The name hovers in the air. The arrow polisher does not name any others. He has longed for Stig, and collected every mention of him, in order to glamorize Stig who was soon to be his friend. And then Stig insulted him so cruelly. He becomes tremendously agitated again on account of what Stig has done to him. His eyes fill with tears of rage, and of shame on account of Stig. Whatever brought him there is standing around him, handing it all to him, helping him because he is so pitiful.

Stig….

Then there is no more to say.

Then a large sum of money is placed in front of him.

No no! he thinks as soon as he sees it. Something rises up in him and shouts no!

But Frank and Freda? he thinks at once. What was I on the brink of doing? Can I take the bread out of the mouths of my two half-grown children? Think of all I can give them, that they need so badly.

Frank and Freda, he thinks, reminding himself that he is their father, clinging to them. Nothing on earth is equal to the joy in their faces when he puts his gifts into their hands. So why not take the money which is legally his?

He puts away the large sum he has been given. He is facing those sharp eyes the whole time. Nothing else. He stands there, trembling. He is informed that that is all. But he remains standing stock-still. This is a strange, dark, gliding dream.