All afternoon I watched three shadows moving beneath us. Mine in front, Akbar's at the rear and between us the mule's: its shadow legs, twenty feet long, jerking like a spider's over the glowing thorn scrub. I felt happiest in the afternoons. The flat glare of noon had gone but the day was not yet over. Staring at that shadow image of our motion and our isolation on the 7000-foot ridgeline, I said: 'Isn't it beautiful?'

'Not for me.'

'Why?'

Akbar did not reply. He often didn't reply.

LRB 6 September 2001 | PDF Download