“No, Mother, not today. The day got off to a bad start, and on such a day I can’t do what I really want to do. And if I can’t do it, then I don’t want to talk about it, either. Maybe next Sunday. Do you hear that? That’ll be one of the Persickes sneaking up the stairs again—well, let them! So long as they leave us in peace!”

But Otto Quangel was uncommonly gentle that Sunday. Anna was allowed to talk about their dead son as much as she wanted; he didn’t tell her to stop. He even looked with her through the few photos she had of him, and when she started crying, he laid his hand on her shoulder and said, “Enough, Mother, enough. Perhaps it’s for the best, when you think of everything he’ll be spared.”

In short, the Sunday passed off well, even without the conversation. It had been a long time since Anna had seen her husband in such a gentle mood; it was like seeing the sun shining one last time over a landscape before winter came and buried everything under sheets of ice and snow. In the months to come, as Quangel became ever colder and more laconic, she would often think back to this Sunday, and it would be both a consolation and an encouragement to her.

Monday brought a new workweek, one of those workweeks that are all the same whether flowers are blooming or blizzards are blowing. Work is always work, and that week people remained as they had always been.

Only one unusual experience befell Otto Quangel that week. As he was going to the factory, he passed retired Judge Fromm in Jablonski Strasse. Quangel would have greeted him, but he was nervous about being seen by the Persickes. Nor did he want to be seen by Borkhausen, who Anna said had been taken away by the Gestapo. Because Borkhausen was back, if in fact he had ever been away, and had been hanging around the front of the building.

So Quangel walked straight past the judge as if he didn’t see him. Judge Fromm apparently felt less need to be cautious—at any rate, he tipped his hat to his housemate, smiled with his eyes, and went inside.

Very good! thought Quangel. Whoever saw that will have thought: Quangel, always the same rough clod, but that judge, what a gentleman. No one would think they were ever in cahoots!

The rest of the week passed off without any events of note, and then it was Sunday again, the Sunday that Anna Quangel hoped would finally bring the desperately desired and oft postponed discussion with Otto. He had got up late, but he was calm and in a good mood. She sneaked a sidelong look at him as he drank his coffee, a little to encourage him perhaps, but he seemed not to notice, and slowly chewed his bread and stirred his coffee.

Anna felt a certain reluctance to clear the table. But this time it really wasn’t for her to speak the first word. He had promised her the conversation for this Sunday, and surely he would keep his word. Any coaxing on her part would seem like pressuring him.

With a barely audible sigh she got up and took the plates and cups into the kitchen. When she came back for the breadbasket and coffeepot, he was kneeling in front of a drawer in the sideboard, looking for something. Anna Quangel couldn’t remember what they kept in the drawer. It could only be some old, long forgotten rubbish. “Are you looking for anything in particular, Otto?” she asked.

But he merely gave a grunt, so she retreated into the kitchen to do the dishes and get dinner ready. He didn’t feel like it! Once again, he didn’t feel like it. More than ever she felt the conviction that there was something going on inside him that she knew nothing about, and badly needed to know.

Later, when she came back into the parlor to sit near him as she peeled the potatoes, she found him at the table. The cloth had been pulled off, and the tabletop was now covered with little carving knives, and wood shavings littered the floor around him.