Our talk, I noticed, had to do with the faraway scenes and incidents of our
first camps in the Black Forest, or of other subjects altogether remote
from the present setting, for neither of us spoke of the actual moment more
than was necessary--almost as though we had agreed tacitly to avoid
discussion of the camp and its incidents. Neither the otter nor the
boatman, for instance, received the honor of a single mention, though
ordinarily these would have furnished discussion for the greater part of
the evening. They were, of course, distinct events in such a place.
The scarcity of wood made it a business to keep the fire going, for the
wind, that drove the smoke in our faces wherever we sat, helped at the same
time to make a forced draught. We took it in turn to make some foraging
expeditions into the darkness, and the quantity the Swede brought back
always made me feel that he took an absurdly long time finding it; for the
fact was I did not care much about being left alone, and yet it always
seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble along the
slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with wind and
water--such wind and such water!--had tired us both, and an early bed was
the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent. We lay
there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion, peering about us
into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder of wind and
river. The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence
seemed natural, for after a bit the sound of our voices became a trifle
unreal and forced; whispering would have been the fitting mode of
communication, I felt, and the human voice, always rather absurd amid the
roar of the elements, now carried with it something almost illegitimate.
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