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Thus I ended up spending the month of August alone on an uninhabited island on Lake Seliger. I caught fish, gathered mushrooms, cooked my own meals over a campfire, and gradually forgot what it was like to talk to other human beings.
For those who may have forgotten, let me say again that the hilly island was surrounded by deep channels on three sides, but on the fourth side a wide reach opened up. Over the summer, the grass on the island had grown nearly up to my waist. My tent stood on its lonesome on a hilly, forested cape from which I had an endless view around me: the watery expanse of the lake and other shores far away at the limits of my sight. Gulls flew over the island and the water and squawked insistently. Far off, a few buoys bobbed in the water, demarcating the main chann
