Ah, Mother, Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you. What poor wretches we are!

“Yes Mother, I will.”

“I will pray for you every day, Paul.”

Ah! Mother, Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through the years, where the burden of all this misery lies on us no more, back to you and me alone, Mother!

“Perhaps you can get a job that is not so dangerous.”

“Yes, Mother, perhaps I can get into the cookhouse, that can easily be done.”

“You do it then, and if the others say anything⁠—”

“That won’t worry me, Mother⁠—”

She sighs. Her face is a white gleam in the darkness.

“Now you must go to sleep, Mother.”