Thoreau's sense of humor comes into play in this chapter as it did in "Visitors." There he began by overstating the narrator's love of society and then proceeded to show how little he relished society. Here the narrator begins by declaring how refreshing a visit to the town can be; then he spends the rest of the chapter describing how irritating such a visit actually is. Picture the narrator walking down the street, with the eyes of the curious town folk upon him; then consider what he says: "Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts."
The reader will once again note that this chapter began with the narrator's bathing. If this metaphor of purification seems belabored by now, it is because Thoreau is making sure that the reader realizes the deep significance of Walden Pond's purity — a point which is stressed in the next chapter. The pond, remember, is a metaphor for the narrator's purified soul.
