You’re a schoolboy, the teacher’s calling to you, you stand up and tremble.”

“But Ferdinand, who’s calling you? The Fatherland? Some clerk in an office! Some bored bureaucrat! And what’s more, even the state has no right to force a man to commit murder, no right … ”

“I know, I know. Why not quote Tolstoy too? I know all the arguments: don’t you understand, I myself don’t believe they have any right to call me up, I don’t believe it’s my duty to obey them. I acknowledge only one kind of duty: to act as a human being and to work. I have no Fatherland beyond mankind in general, no ambition to kill other people, I know all that, Paula, I see it as clearly as you do—except that they’ve caught me already, they’re summoning me and I know, in spite of everything, I shall go.”

“But why? Why? I ask you, why?”

He groaned. “I don’t know why. Perhaps because madness is stronger than reason in the world these days. Perhaps it’s just because I’m no hero and I daren’t run away … there’s no explaining it. It’s a kind of compulsion; I can’t break the chain that is throttling twenty million people. I can’t do it.”

He hid his face in his hands. The clock above them ticked on and on, a guard on duty outside the sentry-box of time. She was trembling slightly. “It’s calling to you, yes, I can understand that, although … well, I don’t really understand it. But can’t you hear anything here calling to you as well? Is there nothing to keep you here?”

He flared up. “My pictures? My work? No! I can’t paint any more. I realized that today. I’ve already living over there, not here any more. It’s a crime to work for your own pleasure now while the world falls into ruin. You can’t feel and live for yourself alone!”

She stood up and turned away. “I never thought you lived for yourself alone. I thought … I thought I was part of your world too.” She couldn’t go on; her tears were forcing their way out along with her words. He tried to soothe her. But there was anger behind her tears, and he shrank from that. “Go, then,” she said, “you’d better go! What do I mean to you? Less than a scrap of paper. So go if you want to.”

“I don’t want to!” He struck the table with his fists in helpless rage. “I don’t want to. But they want me to. They are strong and I’m weak. They’ve forged their iron will over thousands of years, they’re well-organized and subtle, they’ve made preparations and now it breaks over us like a thunderstorm. Their will is strong and my nerves are weak. It’s an unequal battle.