The Young Bride by Alessandro Baricco, Ann Goldstein

comfort, on the wet surface of the lake. They did it with heavenly ease, and for a moment, as they did, their yellow bellies slithered over the water: in the absolute silence of the heat-dazed countryside, a silvery rustling could be heard, the feathers playing the surface of the water. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the Daughter said. She let time pass, and one bird after another. Then she repeated: It’s the most beautiful sound in the world. Once, she added, the Uncle told me that many things about men are comprehensible only if one recalls that they are incapable of a sound like that—the lightness, the speed, the grace. And so, she said to me, you shouldn’t expect them to be elegant predators, but only accept what they are, imperfect predators.
    The young Bride was silent for a while, listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, then she turned to the Daughter.
    You’re always talking about the Uncle, you know? she said.
    I know.
    You like him.
    Of course. He’s the man I’m going to marry.
    The young Bride burst out laughing.
    Be quiet, or they’ll leave, said the Daughter, annoyed.
    The young Bride tucked her head between her shoulders and lowered her voice.
    You’re crazy—he’s your uncle, you can’t marry an uncle, it’s idiotic, and above all it’s forbidden. They wouldn’t let you.
    Who else would take me, I’m a cripple.
    You’re kidding, you’re magnificent, you . . .
    And then he’s not my uncle.
    What?
    He’s not my uncle.
    Of course he is.
    Who told you?
    Everyone knows, you call him “Uncle,” he’s your uncle.
    He’s not.
    You’re telling me that that man . . .
    Be quiet, if you don’t look at them they’ll stop doing it.
    So they returned to the yellow-feathered birds that came from far away to play the water. It was surprising how many details had agreed to meet in a single instant to produce the weld of that perfection: it wouldn’t have been so smooth on a lake that rippled slightly, and other, more astute insects would have been able to complicate the flight of the birds, just as without the silence of the dull countryside every sound would have been lost, however glorious. Yet no detail had failed to appear, or been delayed along the way, or ceased to believe in its own minuscule necessity: so every slither of the yellow feathers over the water offered the spectacle of a successful passage of Creation. Or, if you like, the magical opposite of a Creation that hadn’t happened, that is, a detail that had escaped the otherwise random genesis of things, an exception to disorder and senselessness. In any case, a miracle.
    They let it go. The Daughter enchanted, the young Bride attentive, yet still lingering a bit on that business of the Uncle. The beauty of the sunset escaped them both—a rare occurrence, for, as you must have noted, there is almost nothing that can distract you from a sunset once it has caught your eye. To me it happened only once, that I can remember, owing to the presence of a certain person beside me, but it was the only time—it was in fact a unique person. Normally it doesn’t happen—but it happened to the Daughter and the young Bride, who had before them a particularly elegant sunset and didn’t see it, because they were listening to the most beautiful sound in the world, repeating itself over and over, the same, then a last time, not different. The yellow-feathered birds disappeared into a distance of which only they possessed the secret, the countryside returned to being obvious, as it was, and the lake mute as they had found it. Only then the Daughter, still lying down, still staring at the surface of the lake, began to speak and said that one day many years earlier she and the Son had gotten lost. He was seven, I was five, she said, we were children. We were walking through the countryside, we did it