Read Online B0040702LQ EBOK by Margaret Jull Costa;Annella McDermott - Free Book Online Page A
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stamp itself on the present now
stilled.
`This is one of the few privileges left to us.'
They strolled along the entire length of the road, arm in
arm, stopping at the places from which they had absented
themselves during the summer invasion, like people taking an
inventory of a property they had let out for the season. And
though not a day passed without their celebrating the benefits
of the calm that was restored to them every year at the end of
September, in their heart of hearts there persisted an overwhelming sense of being locked away and abandoned, with
the more or less simultaneous departure of the crowds that
had caused so much inconvenience.
One holiday-maker lingered, a middle-aged man who
walked his dog and whom initially they had welcomed as
company until the end of the Indian summer; but due to his
melancholy appearance, he would become instead the perfect
illustration of a bleakness for which they could find no other
consolation than gratitude - expressed over and over again,
without enthusiasm, but with the confidence that maturity brings, with the prudent certainty of people who, for the sake
of their mental balance and composure, need to attribute to
free and voluntary choice the acceptance of a solution for
which there is no alternative - for an isolation forced upon
them for reasons of health and finance.
Every afternoon they went out for a walk, towards the
promontory and the river if the sky was clear, beyond the
beach and towards the village if it looked like rain; every day
they had to communicate to each other the little changes they
noticed (always in respect of their neighbours or surroundings) and the small surprises that their life, though sedentary
and monotonous, still provided. Because for them nothing
could change, and there was no possible room for novelty,
since they had been telling each other for years that they
would grow old together.
Although they lived in the village (they were the only
people with book-learning, as the locals put it, to live there
all the year round), they had no contacts beyond those
necessary to their subsistence, except for a smallholder and
his wife who occasionally came to have tea at their home.
All they received from town were newspapers, magazines
and letters from the bank, and they had never been known,
in all the time they had been there, to leave the village for a
single day, despite the inconvenience caused by the summer
visitors. They were not unsociable, they could not be said
to live any differently from the better-off locals, and they
were extremely careful never to express, even in private, any
nostalgia for the city, nor voice the usual grumbles about
the lack of comfort or amusement in the environment in
which they had chosen to live, apparently for the rest of
their lives.
They appeared to have measured and weighed up everything with extreme care, to have taken into consideration
their age, their frailties, their income and tastes, and chosen
that isolation in order to eke out - without extravagance, or
waste, with no gesture of impatience, no costly indulgence in
enthusiasm - financial resources that must last exactly until
the day of their death; that was why they had to deprive themselves of any unnecessary luxuries, avoid even the most
innocent temptation; they could not afford to feel curious
about outsiders or visitors, they could not allow themselves
any feelings of envy, promptly stifled, nor any gesture of surprise over the appearance of the unknown which would allow
the irruption on to the stage, set for the last act of the play, of
those hidden elements and agents that every age keeps concealed in order to provide itself from time to time with the
possibility of a plot. Yet every day they must have hoped for
something unusual, though they did not confess it even to
each other. Because the refusal to accept novelty, the submission to routine and discipline in order to abort any
stilled.
`This is one of the few privileges left to us.'
They strolled along the entire length of the road, arm in
arm, stopping at the places from which they had absented
themselves during the summer invasion, like people taking an
inventory of a property they had let out for the season. And
though not a day passed without their celebrating the benefits
of the calm that was restored to them every year at the end of
September, in their heart of hearts there persisted an overwhelming sense of being locked away and abandoned, with
the more or less simultaneous departure of the crowds that
had caused so much inconvenience.
One holiday-maker lingered, a middle-aged man who
walked his dog and whom initially they had welcomed as
company until the end of the Indian summer; but due to his
melancholy appearance, he would become instead the perfect
illustration of a bleakness for which they could find no other
consolation than gratitude - expressed over and over again,
without enthusiasm, but with the confidence that maturity brings, with the prudent certainty of people who, for the sake
of their mental balance and composure, need to attribute to
free and voluntary choice the acceptance of a solution for
which there is no alternative - for an isolation forced upon
them for reasons of health and finance.
Every afternoon they went out for a walk, towards the
promontory and the river if the sky was clear, beyond the
beach and towards the village if it looked like rain; every day
they had to communicate to each other the little changes they
noticed (always in respect of their neighbours or surroundings) and the small surprises that their life, though sedentary
and monotonous, still provided. Because for them nothing
could change, and there was no possible room for novelty,
since they had been telling each other for years that they
would grow old together.
Although they lived in the village (they were the only
people with book-learning, as the locals put it, to live there
all the year round), they had no contacts beyond those
necessary to their subsistence, except for a smallholder and
his wife who occasionally came to have tea at their home.
All they received from town were newspapers, magazines
and letters from the bank, and they had never been known,
in all the time they had been there, to leave the village for a
single day, despite the inconvenience caused by the summer
visitors. They were not unsociable, they could not be said
to live any differently from the better-off locals, and they
were extremely careful never to express, even in private, any
nostalgia for the city, nor voice the usual grumbles about
the lack of comfort or amusement in the environment in
which they had chosen to live, apparently for the rest of
their lives.
They appeared to have measured and weighed up everything with extreme care, to have taken into consideration
their age, their frailties, their income and tastes, and chosen
that isolation in order to eke out - without extravagance, or
waste, with no gesture of impatience, no costly indulgence in
enthusiasm - financial resources that must last exactly until
the day of their death; that was why they had to deprive themselves of any unnecessary luxuries, avoid even the most
innocent temptation; they could not afford to feel curious
about outsiders or visitors, they could not allow themselves
any feelings of envy, promptly stifled, nor any gesture of surprise over the appearance of the unknown which would allow
the irruption on to the stage, set for the last act of the play, of
those hidden elements and agents that every age keeps concealed in order to provide itself from time to time with the
possibility of a plot. Yet every day they must have hoped for
something unusual, though they did not confess it even to
each other. Because the refusal to accept novelty, the submission to routine and discipline in order to abort any
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