‘Well, I’d better be going,’ said Stig, getting to his feet, looking at this helpless man.

‘Going already?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because of what I said?’

‘Oh no. Because I’ve a lot to do.’

‘Well, I can’t take it back,’ says his father, shaking his head in his impotence. Stig looks at his clothes hanging on him. Nothing to be done about that, either way.

‘I’ll have to come back and talk about it another time,’ he says quickly.

‘Yes, why don’t you? And I hope your eyes will be more wide open than they are now.’

Stig does not reply.

‘I’ve been waiting a long time,’ says his father, ‘to hear that you’ve been taking some kind of risk…it’s so dark and…’

‘Yes, it’s dark, but I’m sure it’ll grow lighter again before we’re finished.’

His father keeps on looking at him searchingly, holding him there. Stig is ready to go. Stabs of joy pass through him at the thought of what he could have told this old man who despises him: daring assignments; orders that arrive and must be carried out by the comrades in the group and by himself.

His father says, ‘And what will happen to you then? When it grows lighter, as you say, and as I too believe it will one day.’

‘I don’t quite know what you mean.’

‘Would you be able to accept it?’

‘Yes,’ says Stig.

His voice suddenly confident, in order to reassure the old man, but his father shakes his head without even noticing Stig’s reply.

‘I don’t think you would,’ he says. ‘You would simply accept it, without reservation? In that case you should ask yourself whether you have deserved it. Whether you’ve pulled your weight a little, taken a slight risk together with the others. It would be good to have such certainty in one’s mind, but there….’

Stig stands there wondering whether he is looking at his father for the last time. He is about to leave on a long journey, through the darkness surrounding the house, and over into the unknown that is also safety. Who knows what may have happened by the time he comes back? If only I could have told him all about it, he thinks. But then he would have had that to bear as well. Then it might have slipped out, and then valuable people might have been struck down because of it. We have strict orders never to tell anyone; to know as little as possible; to let others know as little as possible, and those who have no need of it in the struggle must know nothing at all. Behind lurks the terrible ordeal.

What you don’t know can’t be forced out of you.

The terrible ordeal is something that must always be taken into account. By everyone. One’s thoughts circle round it in all such moments.

‘We’ll have to talk about it another time. I can’t stay now,’ says Stig.

‘Oh I’m sure you can,’ replies the old man in the chair. ‘One can never spare enough time to listen to what one dislikes. But I shall say the same thing the next time you come too. Every time I see you.’