Sylvain Tesson - Consolations of the Forest - Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga

I take apart the kayak, pack my bags. My life has unfolded here for months. I fold it back up. I’ve always lived in suitcases. My crates of provisions are empty. I eat some fish. It’s over. Tomorrow, the return.

One last visit to the top of the hill to bid farewell to the lake. Here, I ask the genius loci to help me make peace with time. On our way downhill, Aika flushes a female eider, which beats the water with its right wing, pretending to be wounded. Bek is fooled and chases her into the water until he loses his footing.

Aika seeks the nest, finds it, and savages the six ducklings before I can intervene. I finish off the downy little things with a stone.

For a long time, the mother duck’s mourning cries on the shore…

She grieves for the thousands of miles travelled for nothing; she grieves for her lost offspring. Life means holding on through the death of dear ones.

All it took was the instinctive snapping teeth of a little carnivore for an immense bright loneliness to descend on North Cedar Cape.

I’m sitting on the wooden bench waiting for Sergei’s boat. The sun is beating down. The bags and trunks are piled up. The dogs are sleeping on the sand. And that mother duck weeping in the sunshine.

The morning has the taste of death, the taste of departure.

The dogs look up. A faint rumbling, confirmed: the boat. A dot grows larger and larger on the horizon. One last time.

I express my gratitude and send greetings to the people who helped me throughout my stay in the cabin at North Cedar Cape.

Alexis Golovinov

Thomas Goisque

Cédric Gras

Bertrand de Miollis

Olivier Desvaux

Stéphanie Tesson

Bernard Hermann

Cyril Drouhet and Jean-Christophe Buisson of Figaro Magazine

François Fèvre

Florence Tran

Cyrille Benchimol

Georges Bonopéra

The Botravail team

Emmanuel Rimbert

Sylvie Granotier and Jean-Marie Rouart, for their reading suggestions

Les Équipements Millet and Patrice Folliet

and, above all, Arnaud Humann.

Let the conversation begin…

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