Fauns

You have to be gentle with the young, W. says. They're a gentle generation, like fauns, he says, and require a special tenderness. Their lives are going to be bad – very bad – and at the very least, we should be tender with them, and not remind them of what is to come.

Of course, my tendency is to scare them off, W. says. It's to bellow and fuss and deliver great pronouncements on the impending disaster. W. tries to keep quiet, he says, as a counterbalance. It's alright for me, who can go back to the north, but it will be him, W., who will have to soothe them with soft words and sympathy.

It won't be that bad, he tells them. Don't listen to him. Or: don't worry, everything's going to be fine. Ignore him, he's an idiot. – 'But in their hearts they know', W. says. 'They know what's going to happen'.