‘I won’t give up,’ he went on, as though he were talking to himself, ‘I won’t; I am not going to be killed; I am going right through to the end. Nothing can be worse now.’
He buried his face, and shivered.
I asked:
‘Do you want very much to be killed?’
And he bent his head.
‘I am frightened sometimes,’ he said, ‘I think I am going mad in the night; even here; I see things, and hear them, over and over again; I am afraid of doing it on purpose; of letting it happen. . . . George would never have got like this. . . .’
‘No, George was different. I think, perhaps, it was easier for him.’
‘Yes, George was braver than me, and now, you see, he has finished. He has not got to go on afterwards as I must. I must go on, partly because of George, and can you think what it will be like, Helen, afterwards, when we are sane again, and realize what we have been doing?’
I said:
‘I can’t think about afterwards at all, Hugo. I can’t look ahead at all beyond next week.’