From then on, when I was not hunting, my life was with Nicolas and "our conversation." Spring was approaching, the mountains were dappled with green, the apple orchard starting back to life. And Nicolas and I were always together. We took long walks up the rocky slopes, had our bread and wine in the sun on the grass, roamed south through the ruins of an old monastery. We hung about in my rooms or sometimes climbed to the battlements. And we went back to our room at the inn when we were too drunk and too loud to be tolerated by others. And as the weeks passed we revealed more and more of ourselves to each other. Nicolas told me about his childhood at school, the little disappointments of his early years, those whom he had known and loved. And I started to tell him the painful things-and finally the old disgrace of running off with the Italian players. It came to that one night when we were in the inn again, and we were drunk as usual. In fact we were at that moment of drunkenness that the two of us had come to call the Golden Moment, when everything made sense. We always tried to stretch out that moment, and then inevitably one of us would confess, "I can't follow anymore, I think the Golden Moment's passed.
{I hate The Golden Moment Motel in S3. Am I a no-fun-mopey-pants? No! I think I am not overreacting!}
