"His
whisper was getting fainter and fainter, and all the time he stared
straight out the port-hole, in which there was not even a star to be seen.
I had not interrupted him. There was something that made comment
impossible in his narrative, or perhaps in himself; a sort of feeling, a
quality, which I can't find a name for. And when he ceased, all I found
was a futile whisper: "So you swam for our light?"
2.
"And
there we sat; I at my writing-desk ready to appear busy with some papers,
he behind me out of sight of the door. It would not have been prudent to
talk in day-time; and I could not have stood to excitement of that queer
sense of whispering to myself. Now and then, glancing over my shoulder, I
saw him far back there, sitting rigidily on the low stool, his bare feet
close together, his arm folded, his head hanging on his breast - and
perfectly still. Anybody would have taken him for me."
il racconto