One question appeared twenty-seven times in the journal: who turns on the light in the empty house across the water?
Elias checked clocks, drew wiring diagrams and questioned the boatmen. No lamp or sign of a recent visit was found in the house.
One day he read the entries in sequence. In the first entry, he mentioned a light in the window; in the second, a light on the water in front of the house. In the third, fog hid the house entirely, yet Elias had still written: “They lit it again.”
He laid the sheets out on the table. Before, he had thought he was seeing the same light every night. Now, for each entry, he marked where he had been standing and what he could actually distinguish. Beside several dates he had to leave a blank.
A different question appeared on the twenty-eighth page: “Where do I have to stand to see this?”
The next evening, Elias went out onto the porch, then down to the water. The house stayed where it was. From one spot the light was visible; from another it disappeared. Two marks appeared on the sketch of the shore.
He did not cross out the first question. Between it and the new entry he placed the sketch, which he meant to test the following night.