But the timid, infrequent splashing of the water against the empty shore of Lake Onega brought calm to the soul of the lodger: if you cannot live like a human being, if you must always live in fear, then why try to be a human being? Better to become water, earth or wind. His wife and child had also stopped being people, but they existed somewhere - even if only as wind, water and earth - and they were near by; he could feel them together with him, in the same world as him, in his one heart.