The Drowned World: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

The next day, storm clouds move in, and at noon the temperature is about 95 degrees. The cooler temperatures revive Kerans, and he feels well enough to start the catamaran's makeshift engine. In the rain that night, he lets the rain pound on his skin. He eventually sees the southern edge of the inland sea, but his motor runs out of gas about a half mile from the shore. Kerans throws the motor overboard and paddles to the shore.

Kerans sleeps leaning against the catamaran that night, and the next morning he takes it apart and carries the kerosene drums up and over the silt slopes in the hope of being able to reassemble it and find the sea again on the other side. He often gets lost in valleys of dry silt and wanders through them before finding his way again. Finally, he abandons the drums and continues on foot through the jungles with a small pack of supplies.

Later, Kerans rests below a tree at the edge of the forest. He can hear bats and iguanas and notices that his ankle is swelling and the infection is spreading. He cuts a walking stick and continues into the jungle. The rains start again that night and Kerans is too afraid to stop for fear of being attacked by iguanas. He continues for three days like this and occasionally sees a river, though he can never reach it.

During one stop in the rain, Kerans enters a narrow valley. He stumbles into an abandoned church. The roof is collapsed, but Kerans walks through it looking for a place to spend the night. He hears a faint cry. He wonders if it's an iguana, but can't see anything. He hears it again, coming from in front of him where the sun is setting. Kerans steps around the altar to find an emaciated man sitting against the back of the altar. The man's face is sunken, but he raises a claw-like hand to point at the setting sun. Kerans realizes why this man hasn't noticed him: the sun has destroyed the man's eyes, which are covered in cancers. Kerans thinks the man can probably only see the sun.

Kerans kneels down next to the man and the man asks Kerans where he came from. He turns back to the sun, ignores the flies on his face, and says that the sun is gone. He asks Kerans to help him up to follow the sun. The man's hand opens to reveal a compass, and the man tells Kerans to sleep while he keeps watch. Kerans opens his medical kit and tells the man, who he realizes is Hardman, that they'll go together tomorrow. Kerans builds a shelter around Hardman and they spend the night there.

Kerans and Hardman remain at the church for three days. Hardman doesn't recognize Kerans, and Kerans feels as though Hardman's personality is buried deep in his mind. He believes that Hardman has been blind for about a month. Hardman begins to eat on the second day and is able to stand. On the third morning, Kerans wakes to find Hardman gone. He shouts for Hardman and gets no answer.

Kerans waits for two days before he continues to follow the sun south. Kerans rests for a day in an apartment building rising up from a massive lagoon. He tries to fix his ankle, but it's black and swollen. Kerans knows he has come more than 150 miles because of the increase in heat. He feels unwilling to leave this lagoon, and knows that Hardman will die soon. He knows that he likely won't survive much longer either.

Kerans lies back and thinks of his last years. He thinks of his "neuronic odyssey," of Strangeman, and of Beatrice. Finally, he scratches a message on the wall that reads it's his 27th day and all is well, even though he knows that no one will read it. He then follows the lagoons south. He's a second Adam, searching for forgotten paradises.