Little Diary of Getting Old: VIII

And then at night, when old, we start having vague pointless scraps of dreams that lead us to this place or that, since even our failing senses insist on outings: and lost friends reappear, sleepwalking through the stupor of surrendered existence. But here too there’s something that’s not unconscious, as when the boatman stops his old ferry along the banks of the Arno, plunges his wooden bailer into the bottom of the boat, and dumps that stale water, gone to grime between the staves, overboard into the river, where it flows again, though the boat is held fast amid the mud and rushes.