Deepening subjectivity takes hold as the characters find themselves partially immersed in the dark water of the Placid Gulf, and the language of Conrad's metaphor becomes explicit. Note that the endangered lighter, representing the last platform of society, provides literally the only knowledge that they have in common, as if without it they would be unable to communicate at all. Indeed, speech has already disappeared. The knowledge that the lighter is sinking is "the crucial test of their desires" because it tests whether the desire will survive in a state of utter isolated subjectivity. Decoud's will not.