The memories and reflections that the gift brings to the old man affects another change in his life. He sat for a while with closed eyes, and was almost certain that, when he opened them, the dream would be gone. Now it seemed to him, as to those sailors in the night, that something was calling him by name with a voice greatly beloved and nearly forgotten. Polish books in Aspinwall, on his tower, amid his solitude,–that was for him something uncommon, a certain breath from past times, a kind of miracle.

The books came in the natural way but at the first moment the old man could not seize those thoughts. In the midst of Skavinski’s tranquility, he receives a thank you gift from a Polish society in New York City: He and his routine become one with the landscape and the seascape and the wildlife. It doesn’t appear that he has many regrets in how he has lived his life and he welcomes living out the end of his days in peace and solitude. The lighthouse beckons him from his life of adventure, his world travels, and his childhood in Poland. Skavinkski, now an old man, becomes employed at a lighthouse on the coast of Panama. DMI is sponsored by Jay at Bibliophilopolis. My Deal Me In 2014 list can be seen here.

This week I drew the Ten of Diamonds which corresponded to this enjoyable story. I first heard of Nobel Prize winning Henryk Sienkiewicz’ “The Lighthouse Keeper of Aspinwall” when Jay at Bibliophilopolis posted about it last year.

The lighthouse keeper short story