“I recall then plunging into the water, in which I moved as if it were my natural element. I knew-by what means, I cannot say-that I was going in the direction of the open sea, and I exulted in my speed and agility. I did not feel the cold; or rather I did not know the meaning of the cold. The water seemed to be alive, too, and to welcome my presence; it flowed across my limbs, and lifted me onwards. So within a short time I had reached the sea. Then I ducked and dived within its waves in the sheer joy of my nature. But a sailing boat approached me. When I came above the water the men on the vessel showed such signs of terror and of horror that one of them threw himself overboard in an effort to escape me, and from the others issued screams and oaths that persuaded me I was not of their kind. You may ask how I was aware of such things, being only recently thrust into the world; I believe now that the mind is a creative power that gives as much as it receives. Like the power of speech, it came to me unbidden.
“I grew weary of the dim expanse of the ocean, and eventually I made my journey back towards the land. On some instinct I made my way here, returning to the place of my origin. You had gone, I discovered, but all the instruments of your art were around me. You may believe that I destroyed them out of fury and resentment at my making. Not so. I threw them down, and scattered them, from the fear that through their agency I might be sent back-that I might be returned to that state of non-being from which I had come. I took your hat and coat then, to shield my nakedness and desolation from the eyes of others, and tried to find a place apart from human habitation. I came upon a lonely path by the shoreline of the river and I met no one for some miles until, just before dawn, I saw a solitary traveller walking ahead of me. I was moving very rapidly along the path, endowed as I seem to be with great strength and nimbleness, and it was only a few moments before he sensed my presence. I stopped and went down to the water’s edge, so that I might not alarm him further. In your hat and cloak I managed to escape detection, but with quickened step he wandered off the path into a neighbouring field. Some instinct had moved him. I walked on until I came to an area I now know to be the estuary, a place of marsh and pasture that seemed to be a wilderness. But there in the distance, beyond some trees and a deep brook, I glimpsed a light. I approached slowly and saw that it came from a solitary dwelling. There was a thatched barn beside it, a rough stone building with one opening; as I came over to it, having easily overstepped the brook, I felt the need for shelter and repose. Yes, even I must rest. I had grown weary after my journey, and to my relief I found the place empty. There was a ladder that afforded access to a small loft or alcove in which straw had been placed; here I lay down and slept.
“I was awoken by the sound of voices. But you wish me to tell you of my dreams before I continue my story? That is easily performed. I did not dream. I have never dreamed since I came to life in this room. When I heard the voices, outside the barn, I instantly arose. I can still recall the words. ‘There is a hare in the field, Father. See him scudding past the horses there.’ These are the first words I remember comprehending-comprehending not as sounds merely but as stirrings and tokens of the mind. I knew these words somewhere within me. I recognised them, and at once a whole host of analogies and associations flooded through me. The world before me was quite changed. The labourer and his daughter, as I discovered them to be, were monarchs and angels in my eyes: they had led me into a kingdom of light, where the words opened the very portals of reality. I stayed in that resting place for most of the day, listening to their quiet conversations. They did not enter it-they never did enter it-and by degrees I came to consider it as my habitation. You wish to ask me how I live? My wants are simpler than yours. I can survive upon a harsher diet than men who subsist in luxury; I found that I could eat the leaves upon the trees, and drink from the waters of the brook, without the least discomfort. But there was better food. The labourer and his daughter had a store of turnips in a small shed behind their cottage and, in the deep night, I would take them and feast on them as if they were the most dainty fare in the world. I heard soon enough how puzzled they were by the disappearance of their crop, but they blamed it on the rats or on the foxes. I have told you of the power of their words, opening up the world to me little by little. I found that, on listening to them, new words came unbidden to my lips-forming chains and associations that became sentences. The power of language must be deeply innate so that, after my awakening, all the details of its fabric and structure rose up somewhere within me.
“I can bear the intensity of heat and the extremity of cold without the least discomfort or danger, but nevertheless I felt the want of clothing. I had wrapped myself in your black cloak when I lay down to sleep, yet I knew that to make my way among strangers I must be more fully and decently clad. One evening, therefore, I ventured onto the marshes of the estuary in search of a village or small town where such items might be found. By good fortune, and by keeping to the shoreline, I came upon the town of Gravesend. The streets were quite silent and deserted, at that hour of the night, and down one narrow thoroughfare I saw the sign of a tailor and gentleman’s outfitter. I forced the door with no difficulty and there, in the darkness, I equipped myself with all the garments I would need including the fine linen stock with which you see me now endowed. I am a gentleman, am I not?
“I went back to my barn, and lay me down to sleep. I had come to anticipate and enjoy the early rising of the labourer and his daughter; her childish prattle was my music, and I listened eagerly to the slightest and most inconsequential discourse between them. I felt emboldened by my new garments, too, and when I saw them working in the distant fields I entered their little cottage and surveyed the setting of their lives. It was humble enough, with a plain table and chairs, and two easy-chairs beside a stone fireplace; but it was neat and clean, with an indescribable air of comfort. I envisaged what it might mean to share their life with them; but that was as yet out of my power. Then I noticed the shelf of books. Out of curiosity I took one of them down from the shelf, and left the cottage.
“I had come upon a treasure in Robinson Crusoe. I saw words at first through a veil; they were all familiar to me, but they seemed to be written in an unknown language. Yet, as with sound and speech, I felt a world forming itself around me; the power of the words seemed to rise up within my own being, so that I recognised myself in the same moment as I recognised phrases and sentences. I spoke the words out loud, and one seemed to follow another in the utmost harmony; each one seemed complementary to the next, and all joined in the great music of meaning. In my previous state I believe that I must have been an ardent reader, because I took so eagerly to the perusal of the pages before me. I became so enthralled by the adventures of the castaway on the desert island that I did not note the declension of the sun or the emergence of the moon. I read as if for life. And life it was for me-to enter the state of another existence, to look with newly awakened eyes on an unfamiliar landscape, was a form of bliss. I chanted the words of the book again, and I noticed that there had grown a melody in my voice. I was being nurtured by words. I have told you that the mind is a creative power, and I believed in my innocence that I could now learn the instinctive expression of human passion. If I were a natural man, then I must be naturally benevolent.
“From the remarks that the labourer and his daughter passed to one another when they were engaged in their work, I learned that the girl’s mother had died from the ague, a common sickness in this region, and that she was buried in a little churchyard two miles away across the flats, as they called the fields. They worked hard for their bare subsistence, but I learned how to help them. In the deep of the night I would uproot turnips and other bulbs for them, leaving them in the shed from which I had once taken their food. With my great strength, too, I was able to provide them with firewood and dry logs that I left beyond their little garden. They were astonished by these gifts, but I heard the father extol the ‘good spirits’ and ‘sprites’ of the neighbourhood as the possible cause of the bounty.