"For a long time he suffered from his inability to express what he felt and his ridiculous clumsiness. Now he no longer evaded things but went straight ahead, not trying to avoid the humiliating silence when a sentence is started but cannot be finished and simply tails off. Indeed, he was more inclined to seek it out, for at this time of his life every failure seemed only to tighten the spring of his now inflexible will. He went straight into his subject as inspiration took him. He said what he had to say, and soon even his crudest hearers were listening without arguing or refusing to open their hearts, for it was impossible to feel even for a moment that he was a trickster, and wherever he led people, they could tell that he was climbing there with them. The harsh truth that suddenly leapt out from a long-sought word and struck home has already wounded him and seemed to have been torn out of his heart. Oh, there was nothing for professors to get excited about, nothing rare and special, just simple tales. People just had to listen to what he was saying. The kettle would be singing on the stove, the cow man’s dog lying slumped with its nose between its paws, the high wind making the door creak on its hinges, the black crow cawing furiously in the empty sky, and they would observe him furtively, answering uncomfortably, making excuses, pleading habit or ignorance and then, when he fell silent, so would they."