I realised that most probably I was not alone in the mist. True, I could neither see nor hear anyone else moving close by. But doubtless this was an illusion; there were others, like me, walking in that mist - the inhabitants of the houses on the hillside, and even travellers who must have entered the valley from the town. Perhaps if the mist thinned a little with the heat of the day, or I ascended further into the hills, we would start to see one another; at first we would be little more than grainy blots against the greyness, but later we would turn into smudged silhouettes, and, still later, faintly coloured objects - the bright red of a backpack, or the blue of a hat. Seeing each other in the distance, we would speculate about what we saw, perhaps mistaking one thing for another, thinking that the woollen beret was actually the dog that ran ahead. Perhaps we would hasten toward them to tell them something, but they in turn would be hastening toward someone else, and so ultimately we would all be revolving in the mist, unable to attain our objectives.

Maybe there's no one in the mist, but it's impossible to prove. I could no more prove it than prove there was a sun above me. In fact there are parts of the valley so deep in shadow that the mist there never lifts, and it would be perilous even to try to discover.The sharp rocks and sudden gullies are their own answer – cavernous holes from which one could never extricate onself, their sides permanently slimy with the sweat of the earth. And even if you found your way among them once, by chance, you would never find it again, since in this landscape there are no pointers. You could not even say for sure which valley you were in, and with the disorientation of this mist, where all distances and days seem the same, it is only the arbitrary that can happen. It's as if purpose itself had evaporated, as if one were wandering constantly through some general and disembodied purpose, where the desires of all men and women have comingled to draw us all ways and none. We do not know, in general, where we are going to, although privately each of us must have some idea, if only it were possible for us to meet and put our heads together.