I am not a lost child. Do I have places to spend my nights and days? I have them up to my ears—I couldn’t possibly have more. I am not a lost child. I’m a lost man, and that’s another matter. Wake up in the middle of the night, clamber to the top of the mast and stay there, panting like a seal, watch, wait, heart racing, bang your head against the wall of darkness, wear your eyes out, wear your heart out. What for, after all? Because you’re about to reach dry land? I’m glad for you. As for me? Just leave me the hell alone. No thanks. And no, it’s not that I’m hopping mad. What’s the matter with me? Nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Sometimes, it’s happened that I’ve felt my sorrow subside and then, little by little, disappear and leave me on dry land at last. When dawn breaks with the din of an earthquake, and next, a dead calm falls over millions of square miles of the Pacific; when the ship is rooted fast, like an oak, and a drop of water would sound like the trumpet of the Last Judgment. Three months’ worth of wind away from land of any description. . . .

What, you were here the whole time? You came in with me? So you turned up here to pack your big wings inside these four walls? Ah, well then, don’t budge, and don’t stir up the sawdust. And keep your wings folded; the regulars spit while they’re smoking their pipes. All right then, so you saw? I had them spike my stout with some gin. Oh, I know you only too well! The day you’ll openly admit that something displeases you will be the day it gets hot at the north pole. You approve? It’s just as well you should approve, and just as well you’re being an opportunist, because if you didn’t approve, it wouldn’t make one bit of difference.

You’ve come in. So far so good. But stick close to my back and leave the regulars the hell alone. They have better things to do than bother themselves with you. For the same reason I do? Maybe. It’s possible. I was telling you, before I came in, I’m just an ordinary bloke like everybody else. You didn’t want to believe it, and now you’re the one who’s saying so.

What was I saying, just now, you ask? When? When I was eating my second portion of “rice for two”? You only had to listen more closely. It’s personal. Yes, it’s personal, there’s no need to laugh about it. What’s so funny about it being personal? I don’t go back over things. I’m not one of those clocks that strike the hour twice. I was talking about the arrogance of the gods, if you really want to know. I was talking about the delirium of weakness and the bitterness of being helpless. About human solitude—that’s what I was talking about. You see, if I do have anything to explain (and let me emphasize the “if”) . . . well, then, that’s what I’d explain.