One day, as I was walking down the lane, there was a group of children on the other side, and they asked me if I wanted to play with some apples with them. So I followed them into the shade, and, under the tree, they balanced the apples in their hands and let them fall into their laps. They did this for many hours, and both acts, I felt, were neither difficult nor worthwhile, so when at last they suggested we go into the farmhouse for supper, I was glad to leave those bruised apples behind, along with the wide, silent memory of that long afternoon. They must though have sensed something of my thoughts, for they asked now what I had been doing, anyway, coming along the path, if their lives were not good enough for me. When I told them I had been going home, the eldest one looked at me with astonishment. Who would ever leave home? he said. Why would anyone desert the one place that could shelter him?

That word “shelter” made me think of other things. It was true, I reflected, rain was general in the world. But I was not afraid of getting wet or muddy; and I was not afraid of the thunder or darkness, either. Knowing I could return at any time, the fact my home awaited me paradoxically removed the need for me to reclaim it; at a distance, the idea of it continued to shelter me in a different way, and therefore, in a sense, it had never been abandoned in the first place.

The farmer and his wife were standing outside the farmhouse. I rather think they would have liked to welcome me into the house, but the boy I had spoken to had run ahead and was quietly explaining something to them; the woman folded her arms, and glanced toward us, shaking her head, as he did so. By the time I reached them, their smiles had faded, and simultaneously they put their arms protectively about their children, as if something terrible were going to happen now, and they didn’t want me to pull down their family too as I fell.

So I was going home. Had I kept to that purpose, rather than stopping to play ... the farmer began, by way of explanation; he shrugged his shoulders; it was a fait accompli. But now? And the assembly as a whole shifted uncomfortably and looked at its feet, giving me to understand, by mostly silent signs, that it was not generally possible. The thought continued to circle reluctantly, as if afraid alike to change course or to express itself more emphatically. It was not generally possible; its impossibility, in fact, was probable, but, at the same time, a good part of the necessary energy to accomplish that quest came out of my own belief I was equal to the task, and therefore they could not declare their prejudices too openly, for fear they seal my fate in the process. Now I understood; I could see all of them were growing more wretched by the minute, and even though they bored me and seemed to live in a different world from me, I felt sorry for them, all the same. Out of compassion, I sat down and let them bring me a glass of beer, pointing out that the time for regret was past, and no one was to blame for a mistake the consequences of which were mine alone to bear. It was a strange, luminous, heavy evening, which seemed to have reached us in despite of all the varied things the landscape strove to interpose; at the last, its light was self-sufficient, and it should have been mean-spirited to have questioned it. An hour later, having finished my beer, I derived a quiet, emotionless satisfaction from the fact the children had finally forgotten about me and were playing perfectly happily with their apples once again in what little remained of the evening; for, in a way, I was glad there was no reason now, with all the end of life ahead of me, to hurry back along that involved, outdated route to the distant place of my nativity.