276
PARTISAN REVIEW
the streetcar terminus and a hamburger stall, in
this
mirror along
the reedy edge of the stretch of water below known as Lost Lagoon
two figures in mackintoshes were approaching, a man and a beautiful
passionate-looking girl, both bare-headed, and both extremely fair,
and hand-in-hand, so that you would have taken them for young
lovers, but that they were alike as brother and sister, and the man,
although he walked with youthful nervous speed, now seemed older
than the girl.
The man, fine-looking, tall, yet thick-set, very bronzed, and on
approaching still closer obviously a good deal older than the girl,
and wearing one of those blue belted trenchcoats favored by merchant
marine officers of any country, though without any corresponding
cap--moreover the trenchcoat was rather too short in the sleeve so
that you could see some tattooing on his wrist, as he approached
nearer still it seemed to be an anchor-whereas the girl's raincoat
was of some sort of entrancing forest-green corduroy-the man
paused every now and then to gaze into the lovely laughing face
of
his
girl, and once or twice they both stopped, gulping in great
draughts of salty clean sea and mountain air. A child smiled at
them, and they smiled back. But the child belonged elsewhere, and
the couple were unaccompanied.
In the lagoon swam wild swans, and many wild ducks: mallards
and buffleheads and scaups, golden eyes, and cackling black coots
with carved ivory bills. The little buffleheads often took flight from
the water and some of them blew about like doves among the
smaller trees. Under these trees lining the bank other ducks were
sitting meekly on the sloping lawn, their beaks tucked into their
plumage rumpled by the wind. The smaller trees were apples and
hawthorns, some just opening into bloom even before they had
foliage, and weeping willows, from whose branches small showers
from the night's rain were scattered on the two figures as they passed.
A red-breasted merganser cruised in the lagoon, and at this
swift and angry sea bird, with his proud disordered crest, the two
were now gazing with a special sympathy, perhaps because he looked
lonely without his mate. Ah, they were wrong. The red-breasted mer–
ganser was now joined by his wife and on a sudden duck's impulse
and with immense fuss the two wild creatures flew off to settle on
another part of the lagoon. And for some reason this simple fact
