It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, "I drank too
much last night." You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church,
heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in the vestiarium,
heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve
where the leader of the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. "I drank
too much," said Donald Westerhazy. "We all drank too much," said Lucinda Merrill. "It
must have been the wine," said Helen Westerhazy. "I drank too much of that claret."
This was at the edge of the Westerhazys' pool. The pool, fed by an artesian well with a
high iron content, was a pale shade of green. It was a fine day. In the west there was a
massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance—from the bow of an
approaching ship—that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack. The sun was
hot. Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. He
was a slender man—he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth—and while he
was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze
backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee
in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer's day, particularly the
last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was
definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather. He had been swimming and now he
was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of
that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow
into his chest. His own house stood in Bullet Park, eight miles to the south, where his
four beautiful daughters would have had their lunch and might be playing tennis. Then
it occurred to him that by taking a dogleg to the southwest he could reach his home by
water.
His life was not confining and the delight he took in this observation could not be
explained by its suggestion of escape. He seemed to see, with a cartographer's eye, that
string of swimming pools, that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county.
He had made a discovery, a contribution to modern geography; he would name the
stream Lucinda after his wife. He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was
determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure.
The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and
celebrate its beauty.
He took off a sweater that was hung over his shoulders and dove in. He had an
inexplicable contempt for men who did not hurl themselves into pools. He swam a
choppy crawl, breathing either with every stroke or every fourth stroke and counting
somewhere well in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a flutter kick. It was not
a serviceable stroke for long distances but the domestication of swimming had saddled
the sport with some customs and in his part of the world a crawl was customary. To be
embraced and sustained by the light green water was less a pleasure, it seemed, than the
resumption of a natural condition, and he would have liked to swim without trunks, but
this was not possible, considering his project. He hoisted himself up on the far curb—he
never used the ladder—and started across the lawn. When Lucinda asked where he was
going he said he was going to swim home.
The only maps and charts he had to go by were remembered or imaginary but these
were clear enough. First there were the Grahams, the Hammers, the Lears, the
Howlands, and the Crosscups. He would cross Ditmar Street to the Bunkers and come,
after a short portage, to the Levys, the Welchers, and the public pool in Lancaster. Then
there were the Hallorans, the Sachses, the Biswangers, Shirley Adams, the Gilmartins,
and the Clydes. The day was lovely, and that he lived in a world so generously supplied
with water seemed like a clemency, a beneficence. His heart was high and he ran across
the grass. Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he
was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find friends
all along the way; friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River.
He went through a hedge that separated the Westerhazys' land from the Grahams',
walked under some flowering apple trees, passed the shed that housed their pump and
filter, and came out at the Grahams' pool. "Why, Neddy," Mrs. Graham said, "what a
marvelous surprise. I've been trying to get you on the phone all morning. Here, let me
get you a drink." He saw then, like any explorer, that the hospitable customs and
traditions of the natives would have to be handled with diplomacy if he was ever going
to reach his destination. He did not want to mystify or seem rude to the Grahams nor did
he have the time to linger there. He swam the length of their pool and joined them in the
sun and was rescued, a few minutes later, by the arrival of two carloads of friends from
Connecticut. During the uproarious reunions he was able to slip away. He went down
by the front of the Grahams' house, stepped over a thorny hedge, and crossed a vacant
lot to the Hammers'. Mrs. Hammer, looking up from her roses, saw him swim by
although she wasn't quite sure who it was. The Lears heard him splashing past the open
windows of their living room. The Howlands and the Crosscups were away. After
leaving the Howlands' he crossed Ditmar Street and started for the Bunkers', where he
could hear, even at that distance, the noise of a party.
The water refracted the sound of voices and laughter and seemed to suspend it in midair.
The Bunkers' pool was on a rise and he climbed some stairs to a terrace where twentyfive
or thirty men and women were drinking. The only person in the water was Rusty
Towers, who floated there on a rubber raft. Oh, how bonny and lush were the banks of
the Lucinda River! Prosperous men and women gathered by the sapphire-colored waters
while caterer's men in white coats passed them cold gin. Overhead a red de Haviland
trainer was circling around and around and around in the sky with something like the
glee of a child in a swing. Ned felt a passing affection for the scene, a tenderness for the
gathering, as if it was something he might touch. In the distance he heard thunder. As
soon as Enid Bunker saw him she began to scream: "Oh, look who's here! What a
marvelous surprise! When Lucinda said that you couldn't come I thought I'd die." She
made her way to him through the crowd, and when they had finished kissing she led
him to the bar, a progress that was slowed by the fact that he stopped to kiss eight or ten
other women and shake the hands of as many men. A smiling bartender he had seen at a
hundred parties gave him a gin and tonic and he stood by the bar for a moment, anxious
not to get stuck in any conversation that would delay his voyage. When he seemed
about to be surrounded he dove in and swam close to the side to avoid colliding with
Rusty's raft. At the far end of the pool he bypassed the Tomlinsons with a broad smile
and jogged up the garden path. The gravel cut his feet but this was the only
unpleasantness. The party was confined to the pool, and as he went toward the house he
heard the brilliant, watery sound of voices fade, heard the noise of a radio from the
Bunkers' kitchen, where someone was listening to a ball game. Sunday afternoon. He
made his way through the parked cars and down the grassy border of their driveway to
Alewives Lane. He did not want to be seen on the road in his bathing trunks but there
was no traffic and he made the short distance to the Levys' driveway, marked with a
PRIVATE PROPERTY sign and a green tube for The New York Times. All the doors
and windows of the big house were open but there were no signs of life; not even a dog
barked. He went around the side of the house to the pool and saw that the Levys had
only recently left. Glasses and bottles and dishes of nuts were on a table at the deep end,
where there was a bathhouse or gazebo, hung with Japanese lanterns. After swimming
the pool he got himself a glass and poured a drink. It was his fourth or fifth drink and he
had swum nearly half the length of the Lucinda River. He felt tired, clean, and pleased
at that moment to be alone; pleased with everything.
It would storm. The stand of cumulus cloud—that city—had risen and darkened, and
while he sat there he heard the percussiveness of thunder again. The de Haviland trainer
was still circling overhead and it seemed to Ned that he could almost hear the pilot
laugh with pleasure in the afternoon; but when there was another peal of thunder he
took off for home. A train whistle blew and he wondered what time it had gotten to be.
Four? Five? He thought of the provincial station at that hour, where a waiter, his tuxedo
concealed by a raincoat, a dwarf with some flowers wrapped in newspaper, and a
woman who had been crying would be waiting for the local. It was suddenly growing
dark; it was that moment when the pin-headed birds seem to organize their song into
some acute and knowledgeable recognition of the storm's approach. Then there was a
fine noise of rushing water from the crown of an oak at his back, as if a spigot there had
been turned. Then the noise of fountains came from the crowns of all the tall trees. Why
did he love storms, what was the meaning of his excitement when the door sprang open
and the rain wind fled rudely up the stairs, why had the simple task, of shutting the
windows of an old house seemed fitting and urgent, why did the first watery notes of a
storm wind have for him the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings?
Then there was an explosion, a smell of cordite, and rain lashed the Japanese lanterns
that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or was it the year before that?
He st
It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, "I drank too
much last night." You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church,
heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in the vestiarium,
heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve
where the leader of the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. "I drank
too much," said Donald Westerhazy. "We all drank too much," said Lucinda Merrill. "It
must have been the wine," said Helen Westerhazy. "I drank too much of that claret."
This was at the edge of the Westerhazys' pool. The pool, fed by an artesian well with a
high iron content, was a pale shade of green. It was a fine day. In the west there was a
massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance—from the bow of an
approaching ship—that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack. The sun was
hot. Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. He
was a slender man—he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth—and while he
was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze
backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee
in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer's day, particularly the
last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was
definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather. He had been swimming and now he
was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of
that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow
into his chest. His own house stood in Bullet Park, eight miles to the south, where his
four beautiful daughters would have had their lunch and might be playing tennis. Then
it occurred to him that by taking a dogleg to the southwest he could reach his home by
water.
His life was not confining and the delight he took in this observation could not be
explained by its suggestion of escape. He seemed to see, with a cartographer's eye, that
string of swimming pools, that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county.
He had made a discovery, a contribution to modern geography; he would name the
stream Lucinda after his wife. He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was
determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure.
The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and
celebrate its beauty.
He took off a sweater that was hung over his shoulders and dove in. He had an
inexplicable contempt for men who did not hurl themselves into pools. He swam a
choppy crawl, breathing either with every stroke or every fourth stroke and counting
somewhere well in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a flutter kick. It was not
a serviceable stroke for long distances but the domestication of swimming had saddled
the sport with some customs and in his part of the world a crawl was customary. To be
embraced and sustained by the light green water was less a pleasure, it seemed, than the
resumption of a natural condition, and he would have liked to swim without trunks, but
this was not possible, considering his project. He hoisted himself up on the far curb—he
never used the ladder—and started across the lawn. When Lucinda asked where he was
going he said he was going to swim home.
The only maps and charts he had to go by were remembered or imaginary but these
were clear enough. First there were the Grahams, the Hammers, the Lears, the
Howlands, and the Crosscups. He would cross Ditmar Street to the Bunkers and come,
after a short portage, to the Levys, the Welchers, and the public pool in Lancaster. Then
there were the Hallorans, the Sachses, the Biswangers, Shirley Adams, the Gilmartins,
and the Clydes. The day was lovely, and that he lived in a world so generously supplied
with water seemed like a clemency, a beneficence. His heart was high and he ran across
the grass. Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he
was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find friends
all along the way; friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River.
He went through a hedge that separated the Westerhazys' land from the Grahams',
walked under some flowering apple trees, passed the shed that housed their pump and
filter, and came out at the Grahams' pool. "Why, Neddy," Mrs. Graham said, "what a
marvelous surprise. I've been trying to get you on the phone all morning. Here, let me
get you a drink." He saw then, like any explorer, that the hospitable customs and
traditions of the natives would have to be handled with diplomacy if he was ever going
to reach his destination. He did not want to mystify or seem rude to the Grahams nor did
he have the time to linger there. He swam the length of their pool and joined them in the
sun and was rescued, a few minutes later, by the arrival of two carloads of friends from
Connecticut. During the uproarious reunions he was able to slip away. He went down
by the front of the Grahams' house, stepped over a thorny hedge, and crossed a vacant
lot to the Hammers'. Mrs. Hammer, looking up from her roses, saw him swim by
although she wasn't quite sure who it was. The Lears heard him splashing past the open
windows of their living room. The Howlands and the Crosscups were away. After
leaving the Howlands' he crossed Ditmar Street and started for the Bunkers', where he
could hear, even at that distance, the noise of a party.
The water refracted the sound of voices and laughter and seemed to suspend it in midair.
The Bunkers' pool was on a rise and he climbed some stairs to a terrace where twentyfive
or thirty men and women were drinking. The only person in the water was Rusty
Towers, who floated there on a rubber raft. Oh, how bonny and lush were the banks of
the Lucinda River! Prosperous men and women gathered by the sapphire-colored waters
while caterer's men in white coats passed them cold gin. Overhead a red de Haviland
trainer was circling around and around and around in the sky with something like the
glee of a child in a swing. Ned felt a passing affection for the scene, a tenderness for the
gathering, as if it was something he might touch. In the distance he heard thunder. As
soon as Enid Bunker saw him she began to scream: "Oh, look who's here! What a
marvelous surprise! When Lucinda said that you couldn't come I thought I'd die." She
made her way to him through the crowd, and when they had finished kissing she led
him to the bar, a progress that was slowed by the fact that he stopped to kiss eight or ten
other women and shake the hands of as many men. A smiling bartender he had seen at a
hundred parties gave him a gin and tonic and he stood by the bar for a moment, anxious
not to get stuck in any conversation that would delay his voyage. When he seemed
about to be surrounded he dove in and swam close to the side to avoid colliding with
Rusty's raft. At the far end of the pool he bypassed the Tomlinsons with a broad smile
and jogged up the garden path. The gravel cut his feet but this was the only
unpleasantness. The party was confined to the pool, and as he went toward the house he
heard the brilliant, watery sound of voices fade, heard the noise of a radio from the
Bunkers' kitchen, where someone was listening to a ball game. Sunday afternoon. He
made his way through the parked cars and down the grassy border of their driveway to
Alewives Lane. He did not want to be seen on the road in his bathing trunks but there
was no traffic and he made the short distance to the Levys' driveway, marked with a
PRIVATE PROPERTY sign and a green tube for The New York Times. All the doors
and windows of the big house were open but there were no signs of life; not even a dog
barked. He went around the side of the house to the pool and saw that the Levys had
only recently left. Glasses and bottles and dishes of nuts were on a table at the deep end,
where there was a bathhouse or gazebo, hung with Japanese lanterns. After swimming
the pool he got himself a glass and poured a drink. It was his fourth or fifth drink and he
had swum nearly half the length of the Lucinda River. He felt tired, clean, and pleased
at that moment to be alone; pleased with everything.
It would storm. The stand of cumulus cloud—that city—had risen and darkened, and
while he sat there he heard the percussiveness of thunder again. The de Haviland trainer
was still circling overhead and it seemed to Ned that he could almost hear the pilot
laugh with pleasure in the afternoon; but when there was another peal of thunder he
took off for home. A train whistle blew and he wondered what time it had gotten to be.
Four? Five? He thought of the provincial station at that hour, where a waiter, his tuxedo
concealed by a raincoat, a dwarf with some flowers wrapped in newspaper, and a
woman who had been crying would be waiting for the local. It was suddenly growing
dark; it was that moment when the pin-headed birds seem to organize their song into
some acute and knowledgeable recognition of the storm's approach. Then there was a
fine noise of rushing water from the crown of an oak at his back, as if a spigot there had
been turned. Then the noise of fountains came from the crowns of all the tall trees. Why
did he love storms, what was the meaning of his excitement when the door sprang open
and the rain wind fled rudely up the stairs, why had the simple task, of shutting the
windows of an old house seemed fitting and urgent, why did the first watery notes of a
storm wind have for him the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings?
Then there was an explosion, a smell of cordite, and rain lashed the Japanese lanterns
that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or was it the year before that?
He st
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