Well, where Otto Quangel is concerned, he can set his mind at ease. A tough bird, and a wicked right. And certainly not a chatterbox, in spite of the big beak on him. The way he lit into him!

And for fear that such a man might blab, Trudel had almost been sent to her death. He would never blab—not even to them! And he wouldn’t mind about Trudel either, he seemed not to want to know her any more. All the things a sock on the jaw can teach you!

Karl Hergesell now goes to work completely at ease, and when he learns there, by asking discreetly around, that Grigoleit and the Babyface have quit, he draws a deep breath. They’re safe now. There is no more cell, but he’s not even all that sorry. At least it means that Trudel can live!

In truth, he was never that interested in this political work, but all the more in Trudel!

Quangel takes the tram back in the direction of his home, but he goes past his own stop. Better safe than sorry, and if he still has someone tailing him, he wants to confront him alone and not drag him back home. Anna is in no condition to cope with a disagreeable surprise. He needs to talk to her first. Of course he will do that: Anna has a big part to play in the thing that he is planning. But he has other business to take care of first. Tomorrow is Sunday, and everything has to be ready.

He changes trams again and heads off into the city. No, the young man he silenced with a punch just now doesn’t strike Quangel as a great threat. He’s not convinced he has any further pursuers, and he’s pretty sure the boy was sent by Trudel. She did suggest, after all, that she would have to confess to breaking a sort of vow. Thereupon they will have banned her from seeing him at all, and she sent the young fellow to him as a sort of envoy. All pretty harmless. Childish games for people who have let themselves in for something they don’t understand. He, Otto Quangel, understands a little more. He at least knows what he’s letting himself in for. And he won’t approach this game like a child. He will think about each card before he plays it.

He sees Trudel in front of him again, pressed against the poster of the People’s Court in that corridor—clueless. Once again, he has the disturbing feeling he had when the girl’s head was crowned by the line, “in the name of the German people:” he can see their names up there instead of those of the strangers—no, no, this is a task for him alone. And for Anna, of course for Anna too. He’ll show her who his “Führer” is!

When he gets to the city center, Quangel makes a few purchases. He spends only pennies at a time, a couple of postcards, a pen, a couple of engraving nibs, a small bottle of ink. And he distributes his custom among a department store, a Woolworths, and a stationery shop.