The Boat in the Evening Read Online Free PDF

across floating, shivering tussocks one can find out more.
    From these bewitched birds one can find out more.
    *
    If only one could give them a message about this, telling them to dance more and to dance differently. Very differently. They look as if they can do it.
    With my chin buried in the moss I wish to the nearest one that is rising and falling: Gome closer. Gome close.
    Boldly they reveal themselves in the dance. They reveal their harrowed and astonished bird minds so that one is in no doubt. Come closer.
    They do not come immediately in obedience to my intense wish. There was not enough force behind it for that. They are moving on hanging tussocks, feeling the ground give way and urge them on to more frenzied gestures. If they were to drift over here, it is not likely to be on account of my intense wish.
    But a stream of wishes is directed at them from the boy with his face half buried in the marsh. The sight of them makes one confused. No one can shout and no one sing with his mouth in the marsh, but some kind of intuitive contact has been made all the same.
    They come closer. The nearest one is not so very far away.
    Several of them have paused, their heads lifted high on their long necks, looking inquiringly about them. Sharp-eyed as they are, they must have noticed the object in the moss again.
    Does he no longer startle them? He can well believe it might be so.
    Are they coming here?
    No, they are turning away.
    Nothing to bother about, on their wild, joyous day. They are still possessed by the dance.
    But the nearest one seems curious all the same. It intends to come this way, stepping tentatively on the thin tussocks. It moves gradually in this direction, its head lifted high.
    Another one notices this, and follows, cautiously and a little anxiously.
    All the others resume the dance. Some of them have not even paused. Only these two are still looking this way.
    Shall I call to it?
    No, it would be gone at once.
    As it is, they are approaching through the stagnant puddles. The birds are walking towards this strange object in the marsh that they noticed a long time ago, that does not move, that they are inquisitive about, and that does not threaten them.
    They pause a short distance away. They were born shy. Heads higher than ever.
    This is the spot; they will not come closer. But they are really very close; I can see right into their eyes. Then one stops whispering wishes, they might notice. Just concentrate on the nearest one, the one that really did come of its own accord.
    A feeling comes over me that now there are nothing but eyes above the marsh. A thought creeps in, how extraordinary this must look: a pair of eyes sticking up out of the moss like two stalks—and nothing more.
    Nothing is moving at this spot now. All movement is over there, here it has petrified. How far from me are they? Five or six paces. Right beside me.
    I certainly shan’t beg them to come closer now. The proud head is lifted high on guard, a beam of light strikes straight out of the eye that is turned towards me. Straight towards me without blinking, and thus we are petrified.
    *
    Do I know what is coming from that wide-open eye? No. It could be anything at all; it could very well be fear. No, it is not fear. The bird may have been shy, but it has overcome that now. One can probably read surprise in it, surprise at anything strange. Is there any kind of understanding? No.
    Desperately I latch on to the remote possibility that some kind of understanding is radiating from the bird after all. We understood each other completely during the dance.
    Nonsense!
    But I so desperately want it to be understanding. A proud, alien bird—does anyone know of all that may reside in it?
    I look it straight in the eye. I look at its tall elegance. It looks at my stalk-eyes in the moss.
    At last the bird does something: it turns and looks at me from a slightly different direction.
    The enormous wings are at rest alongside its body. One thinks