Charlie Dalton stood under the arches of Welton and smoked a cigarette from a new, freshly opened pack. He was not the last romantic, and you can't call him a connoisseur of beauty.

But at that moment, looking at the firmament, he was mesmerized.

Thousands of lights were scattered across the dark fabric of the sky, gathering in asterisms and accompanying the thin crescent moon in a night parade.

He remembered the Captain's words: "poetry, beauty, romance, love! that's what it's worth living for!" but what is beauty? Could this be the landscape spread out in front of him? Is this beauty? A canvas of dark sky studded with stars? It seemed that here it was — a moment worth catching. The moment when the beauty of the night reigns around you, when among the thousands of minutes spent looking at your feet, there was a minute to look at the stars.

A whiff of cold wind brought charlie out of his daze. He found that the cigarette had long since gone out, and the hand on the clock had already run a decent distance. The guy mentally looked back at the lost moment of elevation and, grinning, wandered into the silence of the night, holding a collection of poetry in one hand, sometimes turning around and glancing at welton.

The journey to the cave seemed incredibly long to dalton, either because of the cold, or because of a head full of thoughts. Charlie took a deep breath. After all, there is nothing worse than the unknown. Which means he have to go. Dalton took a couple of steps. Trembling fingers clutched the book.

From the overwhelming oblivion, the guy did not notice anything around him and moved only thanks to some inner forces.

Therefore, it was not surprising that he did not notice the smoke coming out of the hole in the ceiling of the cave, nor the soft light spreading at the entrance.