“Still, our conversations remained superficial. But this no longer puzzled me. For wasn’t there sufficient pleasure to be had in silent patience — in viewing others’ vices with compassion and enjoying their vulgarities? When we walked side by side, did I not feel his humanity most profoundly? Only now did I begin to understand why it was not always through words that people sought each other out and came to understand each other, and why some poets went to such lengths to seek out companions who could, like them, contemplate the beauties of nature in silence.”