"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. Madame, will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?"
"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, for three days. At the end of that time you die."
"Will you swear this is the truth?"
"Name any oath and I will repeat it."
"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. What reason lies behind my arrest?"
"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death."
He said at last: "Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will live after me."
Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from Rembrandt's brush.
"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten."
"I feel that they will not, and the name of—"