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 sister? His life is worth five times as much as yours and mine! What have you done?”

She did not answer. With knitted brows and clenched teeth she was watching the road, raising her head higher every now and then to see better. “Where do you want to go?” she asked suddenly at a cross-roads high above the sleeping countryside.

“To hell,” he said through his teeth.

She stopped the car and turned round to him seriously. “Don’t say that! Do you think that I haven’t wanted a hundred times to crash us both into some wall or other? Let me tell you that we should both go to hell. I know that there’s a hell. Where do you want to go?”

“I want to be with you.”

She shook her head. “That’s no good. Do you remember what you said? You’re engaged and you want to save the world from something terrible. Well, do it. You must keep yourself pure; otherwise otherwise it’ll be bad. And I can’t ” She passed her hand along the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go? Where do you live?”

He clasped her in his arms with all his strength. “You’ve killed Holz! Don’t you ”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Do you imagine that I can’t feel? It seemed as if my own bones were being crushed and I see him in front of me all the time, all the time the car is rushing at him, and again and again he runs forward” she shivered. “Well, where? To the right or the left?”

“Is this the end?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “It is the end.”