7

In Walden, Thoreau wanders less around the pond then he does in language, and the joy of wandering takes its source in words. The vagrancy and the ecstatic contemplation of nature are accompanied by un-limited speech: « I desire to speak somewhere without bounds… ». Exploring his self, the subject registers the benefits of his walks and life in the woods, but he also accounts for his profits and losses (sums and lists constituting the minimal degree of the narrative). Traces of loss are lodged in the interstices of the triumphant didactic discourse. The heroic morning work is also a work of mourning, as the parables of the baskets, of the dog, of the bay horse and of the turtledove discreetly testify.