For one thing, they resented the dues; they felt they were contributing quite enough as it was, what with obligatory donations to the Winter Relief Fund and various appeals and the Arbeitsfront.* Yes, they had dragged him into the Arbeitsfront at the factory, and that was the other reason they both had decided against joining the Party. Because you could see it with your eyes closed, the way they were making separations between ordinary citizens and Party members. Even the worst Party member was worth more to them than the best ordinary citizen. Once in the Party, it appeared you could do what you liked, and never be called for it. They termed that rewarding loyalty with loyalty.

But foreman Quangel liked equality and fair-dealing. To him a human being was a human being, whether he was in the Party or not. Quangel was forever coming up against things at work, like a man being punished severely for a small mistake whereas someone else was allowed to deliver botched job after botched job, and it upset him. He bit his lower lip and gnawed furiously away at it—if he had been brave enough, he would have told them where they could stick their membership in the Arbeitsfront!

Anna knew that perfectly well, which is why she should never have said that thing: “You and your Führer!” They couldn’t coerce Anna the way they could him. Oh, he could understand her simplicity, her humility, and how she had suddenly changed. All her life she had been in service, first in the country, then here in Berlin; all her life it had been Do this, do that. She didn’t have much of the say in their marriage either, not because he always ordered her about, but because as the principal breadwinner, things were run around him.

But now Ottochen is dead, and Otto Quangel can feel how hard it has hit her. He can see her jaundiced-looking face in front of him, he can hear her accusation, and here he is off on an errand at a quite unusual time for him, with this Borkhausen fellow trotting along at his side, and tonight Trudel will come over and there will be tears and no end of talk—and Otto Quangel likes order in his life and routine at work; the more uneventful a day is, the better he likes it. Even a Sunday off is a kind of interruption. And now it looks as if everything will be topsy-turvy for a while to come, and maybe Anna won’t ever get back to being her old self again.

He wants to get it all clear in his head, and Borkhausen is bothering him. He can’t believe it, here’s the man saying, “And is it true you got a letter from the field today, not written by your Otto?”

Quangel throws a sharp, dark glance at the fellow and mutters, “Chatterbox!” But because he doesn’t want to quarrel with anyone, not even such a waste of space as that idler Borkhausen, he adds, rather in spite of himself, “People all talk too much nowadays!”

Borkhausen isn’t offended because Emil Borkhausen is not an easy man to offend; instead, he concurs enthusiastically: “You know, Quangel, you’re right! Why can’t the postwoman Kluge keep her lip buttoned? But no, she has to blab it out to everyone: There’s a letter for the Quangels from the field, and it’s a typed one!” He stops for a moment, then, in a strange, wheedling, sympathetic voice, he inquires, “Is he wounded, or missing, or…?”

Silence. Quangel—after a longish pause—answers indirectly. “The French have capitulated, eh? Well, it’s a shame they didn’t do it a day earlier, because then my Otto would still be alive…”

Borkhausen pulls out all the stops: “But it’s because so many thousands have died heroic deaths that the French have surrendered so quickly. That’s why so many millions of us are still alive. As a father, you should be proud of such a sacrifice!”

Quangel asks, “Are yours not of an age to go and fight, neighbor?”

Almost offended, Borkhausen says: “You know perfectly well, Quangel! But if they all died at once in a bomb blast or whatever, I’d be proud of them. Don’t you believe me, Quangel?”

The foreman doesn’t give him an immediate answer, but he thinks, Well, I might not have been a proper father and never loved Otto as I ought to have done—but to you, your kids are just a millstone round your neck. I think you’d be glad if a bomb came along and took care of them for you!

Still, he doesn’t say anything to that effect, and Borkhausen, already tired of waiting for an answer, says, “Just think, Quangel, first Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia and Austria, and now Poland and France—we’re going to be the richest country on earth! What do a couple of hundred thousand dead matter! We’re rich!”

Unusually rapidly, Quangel replies, “And what will we do with our wealth? Eat it? Do I sleep better if I’m rich? If I stop going to the factory because of being such a rich man, what will I do all day? No, Borkhausen, I don’t want to be rich, and much less in such a way. Riches like that aren’t worth a single dead body!”

Borkhausen seizes him by the arm; his eyes are flickering, he shakes Quangel while whispering fervently into his ear, “Say, Quangel, how can you talk like that? You know I can get you put in a concentration camp for defeatist muttering like that? What you said is a direct contradiction of what the Führer says himself! What if I was someone like that, and went and denounced you…?”

Quangel is alarmed by what he has said. The thing with Otto and Anna must have thrown him much more than he thought, otherwise he would certainly not have dropped his innate caution like that. But he makes sure that Borkhausen gets no sense of his alarm. With his strong workingman’s hands Quangel frees his arm from the lax grip of the other, and slowly and coolly says, “What are you getting so excited about, Borkhausen? What did I say that you can denounce me for? My son has died, and my wife is upset. That makes me sad. You can denounce me for that, if you want. Why don’t you, go ahead! I’ll come with you and sign the statement!”

While Quangel is speaking with such unusual volubility, he is thinking to himself, I’ll eat my hat if Borkhausen isn’t a stoolie! Someone else to be wary of. Who is there anywhere you can trust? I have to worry what Anna might say, too…

By now they have reached the factory gates. Once again, Quangel doesn’t offer Borkhausen his hand.