Suzanna had no solid idea of what these places were like. Casco Bay had surrounded every instant of her life with its mists or its waves, or its storms that brought the angry Atlantic almost to the door of her house, which she locked at night if Michael were still out at sea. Suzanna had the most beautiful face in all of Maine, perhaps in all the world. It was a clear face which seemed to make its own light; its features were light and did not seem to depend on each other. When Michael first saw her he imagined she might be easily capable of walking through walls, so fresh and energetic was her manner. “She is sunlight,” he said. She loved the Bible, “because it is beautiful,” she said, and she read it every morning. She dreamed of the places Michael had been, imagining herself a captains wife, or perhaps a contemporary princess of Russia, one whose life went from peak to peak, operatically encountering dozens of carpeted stairs lined with mirrors as she ran to the high heat and noise of a ballroom.
