I could begin to shiver.
Since that occurrence I have made a loophole in the door of the tent through which I can spy the bears when they come nosing
about. This day for the first time I made use of the hole and by the grace of God it was a success. The bear came so close,
so inquisitive it was that I was able to shoot it in the head at close range. Without moving a limb it sank down into the
snow. I came out tentatively all the same and finished the job with a lance, thrusting it like a harpoon until the blood oozed
velvety black on the moonlit ground. So today I have fresh meat, God be praised, and need not fear the pining of hunger for
some weeks yet.
I have cooked and eaten of the animal's liver, of which I had not partaken before, and found it delicious and as I believe
full of strength. After I had eaten and said my prayer of thanks I took myself out, and the sky being clear and the air still
I took a walk and climbed some way up the mountain where in an earlier month I had gone to look for the sun. This was the
longest walk I have taken since that planet disappeared from view. It is noticeable how the sensation of cold varies considerably
with the quantity of moisture and of wind in the air, in still dry conditions such as this day causing less discomfort than
the cutting sleets of more southerly latitudes. As I walked I beheld an eerie pulsing of lights in the heavens and, on this
night of all nights, was moved once more to prayer.
6
A SHIVER RUNS THROUGH him that starts from his guts and yet his head is hot. There is a hammer in his head, beating at his
temples. His skin is hot, taut as if it has been burned. He lies half-conscious on the cot, not knowing what is come to him,
not knowing even how long it has been so. The fire inside him may have lasted a minute or hours, it is without sense of time.
Only the fire in the stove knows time. He watches it burn, flames leaping, subsiding, so mesmerising that when he closes his
eyelids they continue to dance through his throbbing brain. And he feels how the delicate skin of his eyelids also is drawn
tight, as if it will blister and snap, as if it too has been burned by the fire. He lifts them open again but only to see
that this is not so and that in reality the flames have burned right down now and the fire must be replenished. Feebly he
gets down from the cot. The shiver runs through him again and his legs are weak as if they were made of paper. Yet before
he can work on the fire he must drag himself urgently to the pot beside the door and shit, empty himself as if he is being
purged, and then after a long pause when the heat subsides and the cold becomes external and real, drag himself back on folding
paper legs, holding first to the table, then the chair, the edge of the cot, barely having the strength to lift a log.
Again he closes his tight-skinned eyes and now drifts into lassitude, into a half-sleep in which the sound of the fire is
lulling and the only sensation that remains is a strange tingling that runs over the surface of his body from the soles of
his feet to the small of his back, to his neck and ears. His temples feel taut as if fingers were stroking and pulling at
the skin, stretching it back to the brain, cool fingers pulling it away, breaking and shedding the first hard layer of skin.
His body lies quivering beneath them, naked as that of a snake in its sloughing, passive and defenceless.
He feels her hands on him, her body beside his, her hair falling on to his chest. And he shrinks away. 'Do not touch me,'
he says. 'My skin. See, my skin is cracking away. Some illness, some poison in my body attacking it both within and without.
My skin cracks and peels away in fine transparent strips. You cannot touch me. My skin cannot stand it.'
She hears him and pulls back, but not so far that he loses knowledge of her presence. She dresses just out of his view behind
the high cot, putting on her white blouse, tying the
Since that occurrence I have made a loophole in the door of the tent through which I can spy the bears when they come nosing
about. This day for the first time I made use of the hole and by the grace of God it was a success. The bear came so close,
so inquisitive it was that I was able to shoot it in the head at close range. Without moving a limb it sank down into the
snow. I came out tentatively all the same and finished the job with a lance, thrusting it like a harpoon until the blood oozed
velvety black on the moonlit ground. So today I have fresh meat, God be praised, and need not fear the pining of hunger for
some weeks yet.
I have cooked and eaten of the animal's liver, of which I had not partaken before, and found it delicious and as I believe
full of strength. After I had eaten and said my prayer of thanks I took myself out, and the sky being clear and the air still
I took a walk and climbed some way up the mountain where in an earlier month I had gone to look for the sun. This was the
longest walk I have taken since that planet disappeared from view. It is noticeable how the sensation of cold varies considerably
with the quantity of moisture and of wind in the air, in still dry conditions such as this day causing less discomfort than
the cutting sleets of more southerly latitudes. As I walked I beheld an eerie pulsing of lights in the heavens and, on this
night of all nights, was moved once more to prayer.
6
A SHIVER RUNS THROUGH him that starts from his guts and yet his head is hot. There is a hammer in his head, beating at his
temples. His skin is hot, taut as if it has been burned. He lies half-conscious on the cot, not knowing what is come to him,
not knowing even how long it has been so. The fire inside him may have lasted a minute or hours, it is without sense of time.
Only the fire in the stove knows time. He watches it burn, flames leaping, subsiding, so mesmerising that when he closes his
eyelids they continue to dance through his throbbing brain. And he feels how the delicate skin of his eyelids also is drawn
tight, as if it will blister and snap, as if it too has been burned by the fire. He lifts them open again but only to see
that this is not so and that in reality the flames have burned right down now and the fire must be replenished. Feebly he
gets down from the cot. The shiver runs through him again and his legs are weak as if they were made of paper. Yet before
he can work on the fire he must drag himself urgently to the pot beside the door and shit, empty himself as if he is being
purged, and then after a long pause when the heat subsides and the cold becomes external and real, drag himself back on folding
paper legs, holding first to the table, then the chair, the edge of the cot, barely having the strength to lift a log.
Again he closes his tight-skinned eyes and now drifts into lassitude, into a half-sleep in which the sound of the fire is
lulling and the only sensation that remains is a strange tingling that runs over the surface of his body from the soles of
his feet to the small of his back, to his neck and ears. His temples feel taut as if fingers were stroking and pulling at
the skin, stretching it back to the brain, cool fingers pulling it away, breaking and shedding the first hard layer of skin.
His body lies quivering beneath them, naked as that of a snake in its sloughing, passive and defenceless.
He feels her hands on him, her body beside his, her hair falling on to his chest. And he shrinks away. 'Do not touch me,'
he says. 'My skin. See, my skin is cracking away. Some illness, some poison in my body attacking it both within and without.
My skin cracks and peels away in fine transparent strips. You cannot touch me. My skin cannot stand it.'
She hears him and pulls back, but not so far that he loses knowledge of her presence. She dresses just out of his view behind
the high cot, putting on her white blouse, tying the
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