mainland on Friday mornings to give her lessons. Though Olympia has a few talents, illustration is not among them, and she knows that she disappoints the man. She can see a thing well enough, can even describe it quite passably in words, but she cannot translate the subsequent vision to the fingers of her right hand. It is not unlike an adult giving instructions to a child, and the child rendering a result that, unfortunately, does not possess even a childlike charm.
She has more success, however, with riding and tennis. As for the riding, which she takes up at the Hull farm in Ely, it is a skill she has already mastered and therefore cannot lay claim to as an accomplishment this summer. The tennis, however, is new to her and is one of the few organized activities that require all of her concentration and provide brief respites from her thoughts and daydreams.
For more than anything else, the days that pass are ones that hold her in a state of suspension, somewhat in the way of an elongated pause in a beautiful piece of music — an interrupted prelude. Sometimes, it is all she can do to focus on any activity or task at all. She frequently feels dazed and preoccupied, unable to shake herself free of troubling thoughts. Indeed, she wonders from time to time if she is not possessed: Every moment that has passed between Haskell and her is examined and reexamined; every word that they have exchanged is heard and reheard; every look, gesture, and nuance interpreted and reinterpreted. While she sits at the dining table, or writes letters on the porch, or reads to her mother in her room, Olympia invents dialogue and debate with Haskell and weaves amusing anecdotes for him around the most seemingly banal events of her daily life. In truth, her normal routines appear now to exist solely for the purpose of self-revelation, of revealing herself to a man she hardly knows. But though she repeats the same conversations and scenes over and over in her mind, she cannot exhaust them. It is as if she drinks from a glass that continuously refills itself, the last long, cool swallow as necessary as the first, her thirst unquenchable. Occasionally, her relentless scrutiny of the brief time she has spent in Haskell’s presence is an agony to her, for she can see no satisfactory conclusion to what has begun, nor any possible way at all to go forward. She is only fifteen, and Haskell is nearly her father’s age. He is married and has children. She is still in her father’s care. She is but a child herself, perhaps even a deranged and obstinate child, fixed upon a fantasy that has for its roots only a few brief episodes that, for all she knows, she may have misinterpreted. Even so, she tortures herself with her endless imaginings, and there is no hour in which Haskell does not dominate her thoughts. Which causes her to wonder if there is not, existing simultaneously with the torment, an intensely pleasurable element to her self-created distress. Despite the fact that she seems barely present in the universe her physical body inhabits, the days seem more alive and arresting than any she has ever experienced before. Colors enhance themselves; music, which has before been only pleasant or difficult, now has the ability to transfix; the sea, to which she has always been drawn, takes on an epic grandeur and seems endlessly seductive — so much so that she is often sharply impatient of any demand upon her time that takes her away from simply gazing at the water and letting her thoughts float upon its surface.
• • •
The beach at Fortune’s Rocks has always been a democratic one, and at no time more so than on the Fourth of July, when all of the population of the summer community, as well as that of Ely and Ely Falls, gathers for the traditional clambake. The stretch of sand from the seawall to the water’s edge is crowded with summerfolk, tradesmen and their families, and many Franco-Americans and Irish from the mills. An enormous fire is
She has more success, however, with riding and tennis. As for the riding, which she takes up at the Hull farm in Ely, it is a skill she has already mastered and therefore cannot lay claim to as an accomplishment this summer. The tennis, however, is new to her and is one of the few organized activities that require all of her concentration and provide brief respites from her thoughts and daydreams.
For more than anything else, the days that pass are ones that hold her in a state of suspension, somewhat in the way of an elongated pause in a beautiful piece of music — an interrupted prelude. Sometimes, it is all she can do to focus on any activity or task at all. She frequently feels dazed and preoccupied, unable to shake herself free of troubling thoughts. Indeed, she wonders from time to time if she is not possessed: Every moment that has passed between Haskell and her is examined and reexamined; every word that they have exchanged is heard and reheard; every look, gesture, and nuance interpreted and reinterpreted. While she sits at the dining table, or writes letters on the porch, or reads to her mother in her room, Olympia invents dialogue and debate with Haskell and weaves amusing anecdotes for him around the most seemingly banal events of her daily life. In truth, her normal routines appear now to exist solely for the purpose of self-revelation, of revealing herself to a man she hardly knows. But though she repeats the same conversations and scenes over and over in her mind, she cannot exhaust them. It is as if she drinks from a glass that continuously refills itself, the last long, cool swallow as necessary as the first, her thirst unquenchable. Occasionally, her relentless scrutiny of the brief time she has spent in Haskell’s presence is an agony to her, for she can see no satisfactory conclusion to what has begun, nor any possible way at all to go forward. She is only fifteen, and Haskell is nearly her father’s age. He is married and has children. She is still in her father’s care. She is but a child herself, perhaps even a deranged and obstinate child, fixed upon a fantasy that has for its roots only a few brief episodes that, for all she knows, she may have misinterpreted. Even so, she tortures herself with her endless imaginings, and there is no hour in which Haskell does not dominate her thoughts. Which causes her to wonder if there is not, existing simultaneously with the torment, an intensely pleasurable element to her self-created distress. Despite the fact that she seems barely present in the universe her physical body inhabits, the days seem more alive and arresting than any she has ever experienced before. Colors enhance themselves; music, which has before been only pleasant or difficult, now has the ability to transfix; the sea, to which she has always been drawn, takes on an epic grandeur and seems endlessly seductive — so much so that she is often sharply impatient of any demand upon her time that takes her away from simply gazing at the water and letting her thoughts float upon its surface.
• • •
The beach at Fortune’s Rocks has always been a democratic one, and at no time more so than on the Fourth of July, when all of the population of the summer community, as well as that of Ely and Ely Falls, gathers for the traditional clambake. The stretch of sand from the seawall to the water’s edge is crowded with summerfolk, tradesmen and their families, and many Franco-Americans and Irish from the mills. An enormous fire is
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