The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: his head in sign of assent. It was his destiny. The sun had set, and
the trees swayed their boughs with a great noise above our heads.
"On the third night we two left our land together in a trading prau.
"The sea met us--the sea, wide, pathless, and without voice. A
sailing prau leaves no track. We went south. The moon was full; and,
looking up, we said to one another, 'When the next moon shines as this
one, we shall return and they will be dead.' It was fifteen years ago.
Many moons have grown full and withered and I have not seen my land
since. We sailed south; we overtook many praus; we examined the creeks
and the bays; we saw the end of our coast, of our island--a steep
cape over a disturbed strait, where drift the shadows of shipwrecked
Tales of Unrest |