‘I have known what it was to lie in bed for three days, because I had nothing to eat.’

Gudrun was looking at him with large, grave eyes, that seemed to draw the confession from him as the marrow from his bones. All his nature held him back from confessing. And yet her large, grave eyes upon him seemed to open some valve in his veins, and involuntarily he was telling.

‘My father was a man who did not like work, and we had no mother. We lived in Austria, Polish Austria. How did we live? Ha! — somehow! Mostly in a room with three other families — one set in each corner — and the W.C. in the middle of the room — a pan with a plank on it — ha! I had two brothers and a sister — and there might be a woman with my father. He was a free being, in his way —