PARTISAN REVIEW
541
If
this indeed was the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, its
narrow, crooked streets rapidly disappearing in snow, the ledges of
the run-down Federalist houses puffing white in the cold swirl of
darkness, the pinched-in sidewalks all but deserted, the numberless
barrooms and restaurants closed up for the night, an unseasonable
night no matter how it was regarded, and
if
that white, turtle-shaped
heap of snow next to me and in the middle of the street was in fact
my black Volkswagen, stuck in wet, packed snow that came up to
the tops of the hub caps,
if
all this was true - then I must have
been the person who was standing in the street, the tall man with the
tiny icicles in his moustache. He was five miles from the room he
had rented at the Holiday Inn (he had wanted to avoid rooming
houses in the city). He was hatless and without gloves, though he
did have on a warm coat with a high collar and a waterproofed pair
of insulated, leather boots. He started walking, slowly at first, then
at a faster pace, and soon he wasn't cold and was enjoying the night
and the snow and the sea-chilled wind that came raucously at him
from behind, from the sea, shoving him along his way, helping him,
even, so long as he was headed inland. At that time, as he stumbled,
walked and finally jogged happily through the streets of Portsmouth
in the middle of a blizzard, I could not believe that I was anyone
other than the man with the icicles in his moustache. I was on both
sides of his eyes, inside and outside as well, and his eyes were filled
,-vith water. It occurred to me that the man might die, that he
might have caught pneumonia and was feverish, or that unknowingly
he had for years been carrying inside him a killing disease that now,
when he was most vulnerable, had decided to strike him down. It
occurred to me that he was insane. It occurred to me that he was not
Insane.
He woke, expecting the storm to be over and the sun to be
shining on a soft, white world. It was not over. The sky was still
low and mottled grey, the snow blowing from the northeast, the
wet air unseasonably, dully cold. The drive back to his house seemed
interminable.
