Nature was near to him once more. The talk was near and spreading. He began to understand the words that went endlessly on. It was like being in the rain, face up, where he could see the separate drops strike him, and the full sweep of the rain was lost. He was afraid of these pouring men and women. He was afraid they would ask him to join in their words. What would he say? He had no theme and no passion. “I guess I am pretty stupid.” He was relieved, confessing this to himself. He was soft and vague; he did not seem to mind. Almost he seemed glad. Something made him know in these sharp stamps of life the consequence of hardenings and exclusions. What was it he had felt in the fields near his town when he lazed? He had felt a great and moving Breath. He had felt himself astir upon a Breath, as he saw a hair on his chest lift when he breathed. Life? It had no center, no form, no way. It was a breathing rondure that fed him. Below on the road and below the corn came a man. His head and shoulders were slight, moving up. The eyes of David were veiled. His thoughts were color. He felt no form to his thoughts, no form to himself. He sat in a water of slow colors. He sat as if he lay. He was quiet, enfolded. These waters that held him were a tide. They were moveless and yet they were pointing. They seemed to be going somewhere and to have come from somewhere and to be going whence they had come. David said to himself: “How funny! I’ve forgotten all about last night. That is funny!” He thought of last night.... Brief strained words within the trees with a strange sharp man. Angular words--and their canoes rippling smoothly out, side by side. Undimensioned like a dream’s end, yet sharp, was their emerging from the trees. The lake was suddenly solid, mounting toward its end where the village burned a patch in the night--they paddled together toward it.... A different world; an adventure. Yet he knew that the colors which were his thoughts and in which he had lain had not changed. The man on the road was near. He saw the man of last night. All new and the same: a man cutting upon him through that night, these guests, these clouds. “Rain’s stopped. Time for a walk.” * * * * * A boy, nineteen and tall, with loose light hair and features warm against the gray of the day--a young man, older by some years, quick-gaited, short--followed the road that followed the shore of the lake. They were silent. David clutched a strand of grass and put it in his mouth. “My name is Rennard--Thomas Rennard,” he heard. “Mine is David Markand.” “I come from New York.... Are you going to New York?” “Yes.” David wanted to say: “How did you know?” “We hadn’t much to say--last night--to each other, did we?” Thomas Rennard laughed. They looked at each other. “Have you ever been to New York?” “No.... I have an uncle there.” “You’re going to work for him?” How did he know these things? “Yes.”