‘Ready-made?’ he asked ironically.

‘No — real,’ she said, hurt.

‘If we are the end, we are not the beginning,’ he said.

‘Yes we are,’ she said. ‘The beginning comes out of the end.’

‘After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.’

‘You are a devil, you know, really,’ she said. ‘You want to destroy our hope. You WANT US to be deathly.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I only want us to KNOW what we are.’

‘Ha!’ she cried in anger. ‘You only want us to know death.’