The dreadful idea that she might have contempt for me just because of my foreignness, my otherness, made me try with special zeal, when I had the vigor to do it, to kindle those eyes of hers with amusement and pleasure.

I began to be a little afraid of the men on the boat. I had discovered myself an outsider. Remember, I was only a boy; twenty-four years old. I was young then. I was young. It was good to be young, but who could have told me that?

I became lonely and frightened, yet I remember my convalescence of those days as a poignantly happy period, which I prolonged by will and deceit, feigning misery after it had left me.

The owner came to me in his black coat which was lined with leopard skin and, sucking at his teeth, gave me official permission to submit to his wife’s nursing, though I had willingly been doing so for two or three days before he bestowed these oral credentials on me. Thus I was made aware of a watchful eye.