Lights, solitary and feeble, come and go along the black ribbon of the distant bank. Mostly the dark, entering into every crevice and overlooked spot. All those wandering around by themselves in the dark, lying down in it in rooms and on riverbanks and in woods where the big brown owls speak their solemn questions. The professor said that entering each small town was like the Israelites coming out of the wilderness. It’s not your light sets you free, he said, it’s all those others. He decides to get in to shore. He is too tired to stay out in the water. But he doesn’t have the strength to paddle in. All he can do is get up on the log. He does this and crams himself in the sunder and rides along on his back watching the stars as they wheel grandly down into the earth and then he slips into sleep and rides along dreaming lightly of a woman, whose name escapes him, holding in her hands a skein of flowering vine, and turns in sleep and slides into the water.
The cool water wakes him.
Already it is dawn. The river has widened out.
