“I don’t know. But I have to.”

“Why do you have to? They can’t order you about here in Switzerland. You’re a free man here.”

“Free!” he said savagely, through gritted teeth. “Who’s still free today?”

“Anyone who wants to be. You most of all. What is this?” Contemptuously, she snatched away the sheet of paper that he had placed in front of him. “What power does this scrap of paper have over you, scribbled by some wretched clerk in an office—what power does it have over you? You’re a free, living man! What can it do to you?”

“In itself it can’t do anything, but the people who sent it can.”

“So who sent it? What human being does it come from? It’s from no one but a machine, a vast, murderous machine. But it can’t touch you.”

“It’s touched millions, so why not me?”

“Because you don’t want to go?”

“Nor did all the others.”

“But they weren’t free. They were caught between the guns, that’s why they went. Not of their own free will, not one of them. No one would willingly have left Switzerland to go back to that hell.”

But when she saw how he was tormenting himself, she checked her wildness. Pity welled up in her, as if for a child. “Ferdinand,” she said, leaning against him, “try to think perfectly clearly now. You’re afraid, and I understand how distressing it is to have this evil beast suddenly pouncing on you. But remember, we were expecting this letter. We’ve discussed what to do in this event hundreds of times, and I was proud of you because I knew you’d just tear it to pieces, you wouldn’t give yourself up to go and murder people. Don’t you remember?”

“I know, Paula, I know, but … ”

“Don’t say any more now,” she urged him. “Somehow or other, this thing has got its teeth into you. But think of our conversations, of the statement you drew up—it’s there in the left-hand drawer of the desk—saying that you would never carry arms. You had firmly decided … ”

He reacted to that. “No, I hadn’t firmly decided! I was never sure! All that was lies. I was hiding from my own fear. I intoxicated myself with those words. But it was all true only as long as I was free, and I always knew that if I was summoned I’d be weak. Do you think I trembled before them? They’re nothing as long as their ideas aren’t really in my heart, otherwise they’re just air, words, nothing. But I trembled before myself, because I always knew that as soon as they called me up I’d go.”

“Ferdinand, do you want to go?”

“No, no, no,” he cried, stamping his foot, “I don’t want to, I don’t, nothing in me wants to. But I shall go, against my own will. That’s the terrible part of these people’s power, you serve them against your will, against your own convictions. If you still had a will of your own—but the moment you have a letter like that in your hands, your free will is gone. You obey.