The peonies were more opulent than usual and I walked slowly through the green light on the terrace above the white river, enjoying the heavy odor of peonies and of new roses rambling in hedges. The Hudson was calm, no ripple revealed that slow tide which even here, miles to the north of the sea, rises brackishly at the moon's disposition. Across the river the Catskills, water-blue, emerged sharply from the summer's green as though the earth in one vivid thrust had attempted sky, fusing the two elements into yet another, richer blue . . . but the sky was only framed, not really touched, and the blue of hills was darker than the pale sky with its protean clouds all shaped by wind, like the stuff of auguries and human dreaming. The sky that day was like an idiot's mind, wild with odd clouds, but lovely too, guileless, natural, allusive. I did not want to go in to lunch, although there was no choice in the matter. I had arrived at one o'clock; I was expected at one-thirty. Meanwhile, avoiding the house until the last possible moment, I had taken a neighbor's privilege of strolling alone about the garden; the house behind me was gray and austere, granitic, more English than Hudson Valley.
