8
PARTISAN REVIEW
its pleasant and active whine, and my father goes to buy peanuts.
My mother remains at the rail and stares at the ocean. The ocean
seems merry to her; it pointedly sparkles and again and again the
pony waves are released. She notices the children digging in the wet
sand, and the bathing costumes of the girls who are her own age.
My father returns with the peanuts. Overhead the sun's lightning
strikes and strikes, but neither of them are at all aware of it. The
boardwalk is full of people dressed in their Sunday clothes and
casually strolling. The tide does not reach as far as the boardwalk,
and the strollers would feel no danger if it did. My father and mother
lean on the rail of the boardwalk and absently stare at the ocean.
The ocean is becoming rough; the waves come in slowly, tugging
strength from far back. The moment before they somersault, the
moment when they arch their backs so beautifully, showing white
veins in the green and black, that moment is intolerable. They finally
crack, dashing fiercely upon the sand, actually driving, full force
downward, against it, bouncing upward and forward, and at last
petering out into a small stream of bubbles which slides up the beach
and then is recalled. The sun overhead does not disturb my father and
my mother. They gaze idly at the ocean, scarcely interested in its
harshness. But I stare at the terrible sun which breaks up sight, and
the fatal merciless passionate ocean. I forget my parents. I stare
fascinated, and finally, shocked by their indifference, I burst out weep-
ing once more. The old lady next to me pats my shoulder and says
"There, there, young man, all of this is only a movie, only a movie."
-but I look up once more at the terrifying sun and the terrifying
ocean, and being unable to control my tears I get up and go to the
men's room, stumbling over the feet of the other people seated in my
row.
IV
When I return, feeling as if I had just awakened in the morning
sick for lack of sleep, several hours have apparently passed and my
parents are riding on the merry-go-round. My father is on a black
horse, my mother on a white one, and they seem to be making an
eternal circuit for the single purpose of snatching the nickel rings
which are attached to an arm of one of the posts. A hand organ is
playing; it is inseparable from the ceaseless circling of the merry-
go-round.
For a moment it seems that they will never get off the carousel,
for it will never stop, and I feel as if I were looking down from the
fiftieth story of a building. But at length they do get off; even the
hand-organ has ceased for a moment. There is a sudden and sweet
stillness, as if the achievement of so much motion. My mother has
