“It can’t be true! It’s impossible! I should hate myself,” she thinks.
To fortify herself against her secret enemy she spends as much time as she can spare with her father. The old man is now bitterer than ever against the Germans. They have killed his son, and he can never forgive them.
“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered.... Let not the ungodly have their desire, O Lord; let hot burning coals fall upon them; let them be cast into the fire and into the pit, that they may never rise again.”
Mona hears the old man’s voice through the thin partition wall that separates her room from his, and she makes an effort to join in his imprecations. But the terrible thing is that she catches herself thinking they are wicked psalms, and that David, when he said such things, was not “a man after God’s own heart” but a devil.
This frightens her and she tries to make amends to her conscience by being as harsh as possible to the prisoners. When Oskar comes to the dairy with the rest she never allows herself to look at him, and when he speaks, which is seldom, she snaps at him or else tries not to hear what he is saying. But one morning she is compelled to listen.
“Ludwig’s gone.”
“Ludwig?”
“The man who used to come for the milk.”
“The boy with the cough?”
“Yes. Died in the night and is to be buried to-morrow. Just twenty-two and such a quiet young fellow. He was the only son of his mother too, and she is a widow. I’ve got to write and tell her. She’ll be broken-hearted.”