This sea was always colder than it looked, he thought. It did not really warm until the middle of summer except on the shallow beaches. This beach dropped off quite suddenly and the water had been sharply cold until the swimming warmed him. He looked out at the sea and the high clouds and noticed how far the fishing fleet was working to the westward. Then he looked at the girl sleeping on the sand that was quite dry now and beginning to blow delicately with the rising wind when his feet stirred.
During the night he had felt her hands touching him. And when he woke it was in the moonlight and she had made the dark magic of the change again and he did not say no when she spoke to him and asked the questions and he felt the change so that it hurt him all through and when it was finished after they were both exhausted she was shaking and she whispered to him, "Now we have done it. Now we really have done it."
Yes, he thought. Now we have really done it. And when she went to sleep suddenly like a tired young girl and lay beside him lovely in the moonlight that showed the beautiful new strange line of her head as she slept on her side he leaned over and said to her but not aloud, "I'm with you. No matter what else you have in your head I'm with you and I love you."
In the morning he had been very hungry for breakfast but he waited for her to wake. He kissed her finally and she woke and smiled and got up sleepily and washed in the big basin and slouched in front of the mirror of the armoire and brushed her hair and looked at the mirror unsmiling and then smiled and touched her cheeks with the tips of her fingers and pulled a striped shirt over her head and then kissed him. She stood straight so her breasts pushed against his chest and she said, "Don't worry, David. I'm your good girl come back again.
But he was very worried now and he thought what will become of us if things have gone this wildly and this dangerously and this fast? What can there be that will not burn out in a fire that rages like that? We were happy and I am sure she was happy. But who ever knows? And who are you to judge and who participated and who accepted the change and lived it? If that is what she wants who are you not to wish her to have it? You're lucky to have a wife like her and a sin is what you feel bad after and you don't feel bad. Not with the wine you don't feel bad, he told himself, and what will you drink when the wine won't cover for you?
He took the bottle of oil out of the rucksack and put a little oil on the girl's chin and on her cheeks and on her nose and found a blue faded patterned handkerchief in the canvas pocket of the rucksack and laid it across her breast.
"Must I stop?" the girl asked. "I'm having the most wonderful dream."
"Finish the dream," he said.
"Thank you."
In a few minutes she breathed very deeply and shook her head and sat up.
"Let's go in now," she said.
They went in together and swam out and then played under water like porpoises. When they swam in they dried each other off with towels and he handed her the bottle of wine that was still cool in the rolled newspaper and they each took a drink and she looked at him and laughed.
"It's nice to drink it for thirst," she said. "You don't really mind being brothers do you?"
"No." He touched her forehead and her nose and then her cheeks and chin with the oil and then put it carefully above and behind her ears.
"I want to get behind my ears and neck tanned and over my cheekbones. All the new places."
"You're awfully dark, brother," he said. "You don't know how dark."
"I like it," the girl said. "But I want to be darker."
They lay on the beach on the firm sand that was dry now but still cool after the high tide had fallen. The young man put some oil on the palm of his hand and spread it lightly with his fingers over the girl's thighs and they glowed warm as the skin took the oil. He went on spreading it over her belly and breasts and the girl said sleepily, "We don't look very much like brothers when we're this way do we?"
"No."
"I'm trying to be such a very good girl," she said. "Truly you don't have to worry darling until night. We won't let the night things come in the day."
At the hotel the postman was having a drink while he waited for the girl to sign for a large forwarding envelope heavy with enclosed letters from her bank in Paris. There were three letters re-addressed from his bank, too. It was the first mail since they had sent the hotel as a forwarding address. The young man gave the postman five francs and asked him to have another glass of wine with him at the zinc bar. The girl unhooked the key from the board and said, "I'll go up to the room and get cleaned up and meet you at the cafe."
After he finished his glass he said goodbye to the postman and walked down along the canal to the cafe. It was good to sit in the shade after walking back bareheaded in the sun from the far beach and it was pleasant and cool in the cafe. He ordered a
vermouth and soda and took out his pocket knife and slit open his letters. All three envelopes were from his publishers and two of them were fat with clippings and the proofs of advertisements. He glanced at the clippings and then read the long letter. It was cheerful and guardedly optimistic. It was too early to tell how the book would do but everything looked good. Most of the reviews were excellent. Of course there were some. But that was to be expected. Sentences had been underlined in the reviews that would probably be used in the future advertisements. His publisher wished he could say more about how the book would do but he never made predictions as to sales. It was bad practice. The point was that the book could not have been better received. The reception was sensational really. But he would see the clippings. The first printing had been five thousand copies and on the strength of the reviews a second printing had been ordered. The upcoming advertisements would carry the phrase Now in Its Second Printing. His publisher hoped that he was as happy as he deserved to be and taking the rest that he so richly deserved. He sent his best greetings to his wife.
The young man borrowed a pencil from the waiter and com menced to multiply $2.50 by one thousand. That was easy. Ten percent of that was two hundred and fifty dollars. Five times that was twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Deduct seven hundred and fifty dollars for the advance. That left five hundred dollars earned by the first printing.
Now there was the second printing. Say that was two thousand. That was twelve and a half percent of five thousand dollars. If that was how the contract was. That would be six hundred and twenty-five dollars. But maybe it did not go up to twelve and a half percent until ten thousand. Well it was still five hundred dollars. That would still leave a thousand.
He started to read the reviews and found that he had drunk the vermouth without ever noticing it. He ordered another and returned the pencil to the waiter. He was still reading the reviews when the girl came in bringing her heavy envelope of letters.
"I didn't know they'd come," she said. "Let me see them. Please let me see them."
The waiter brought her a vermouth and putting it down saw the picture as the girl unfolded a clipping.
"C'est Monsieur?" he asked.
"Yes it is," the girl said and held it up for him to see.
"But differently dressed," the waiter said. "Do they write about the marriage? May I see a picture of Madame?"
"Not about the marriage. Criticisms of a book by Monsieur."
"Magnificent," said the waiter who was deeply moved. "Is Madame also a writer?"
"No," the girl said not looking up from the clippings. "Madame is a housewife."
The waiter laughed proudly. "Madame is probably in the cinema."
They both read clippings and then the girl put the one she was reading down and said, "I'm frightened by them and all the things they say. How can we be us and have the things we have and do what we do and you be this that's in the clippings?"
"I've had them before," the young man said. "They're bad for you but it doesn't last."
"They're terrible," she said. "They could destroy you if you thought about them or believed them. You don't think I married you because you are what they say you are in these clippings do you?"
"No. I want to read them and then we'll seal them up in the envelope."
"I know you have to read them. I don't want to be stupid about them. But even in an envelope it's awful to have them with us. It's like bringing along somebody's ashes in a jar."
"Plenty of people would be happy if their damned husbands had good reviews."
"I'm not plenty of people and you're not my damned husband. Please let's not fight."
"We won't. You read them and if there's anything good you tell me and if they say anything about the book that's intelligent that we don't know you tell me. The book's made some money already," he told her.
"That's wonderful. I'm so glad. But we know it's good. If the reviews had said it was worthless and it never made a cent I would have been just as proud and just as happy."
I wouldn't, the young man thought. But he did not say it. He went on reading the reviews, unfolding them and folding them up again and putting them back in the envelope. The girl sat opening envelopes and reading her letters without interest. Then she looked out of the cafe at the sea. Her face was a dark gold brown and she had brushed her hair straight back from her forehead the way the sea had pulled it when she had come out of the water and where it was cropped close and on her cheeks the sun had burned it to white gold against the brown of her skin. She looked out at the sea and her eyes were very sad. Then she went back to opening letters. There was one long typewritten one that she read with concentration. Then she went on opening and reading the other letters. The young man looked at her and thought she looked a little as though she were shelling peas.
"What was in the letters?" the young man asked.
"There were checks in some."
"Big ones?"
"Two."
"That's fine," he said.
"Don't go away like that. You always said it never made any difference."
"Have I said anything?"
"No. You just went away.
"I'm sorry," he said. "How big are they?"
"Not much really. But good for us. They've been deposited. It's because I'm married. I told you it was the best thing for us to be married. I know it doesn't mean anything as capital but this is spendable. We can spend it and it doesn't hurt anybody and it's for that. It doesn't have anything to do with regular income nor what I get if I live to be twenty-five or if I ever live to be thirty. This is ours for anything we want to do. Neither of us will have to worry about balances for a while. It's that simple."
"The book has paid back the advance and made about a thousand dollars," he said.
"Isn't that awfully good when it's only just come out?"
"It's all right. Should we have another one of these?" he asked.
"Let's drink something else."
"How much vermouth did you drink?"
"Only the one. I must say it was dull."
"I drank two and didn't even taste them."
"What is there that's real?" she said.
"Did you ever drink Armagnac and soda? That's real enough."
"Good. Let's try that."
The waiter brought the Armagnac and the young man told him to bring a cold bottle of Perrier water instead of the syphon. The waiter poured two large Armagnacs and the young man put ice in the big glasses and poured in the Perrier.
"This will fix us," he said. "It's a hell of a thing to drink before lunch though."
The girl took a long sip. "It's good," she said. "It has a fresh clean healthy ugly taste." She took another long sip. "I can really feel it. Can you?"
"Yes," he said and took a deep breath. "I can feel it."
She drank from the glass again and smiled and the laugh wrinkles came at the corner of her eyes. The cold Perrier had made the heavy brandy alive.
"For heroes," he said.
"I don't mind being a hero," she said. "We're not like other people. We don't have to call each other darling or my dear or my love nor any of that to make a point. Darling and my dearest and my very dearest and all that are obscene to me and we call each other by our Christian names. You know what I'm trying to say. Why do we have to do other things like everyone does?"
"You're a very intelligent girl."
"All right Davie," she said. "Why do we have to be stuffy? Why don't we keep on and travel now when it can never be more fun? We'll do everything you want. If you'd been a European with a lawyer my money would have been yours any way. It is yours."
"The hell with it."
"All right. The hell with it. But we'll spend it and I think it's wonderful. You can write afterwards. That way we can have the fun before I have a baby for one thing. How do I know when I'll have a baby even? Now it's all getting dull and dusty talking about it. Can't we just do it and not talk about it?"
"What if I want to write? The minute you're not going to do something it will probably make you want to do it."
"Then write, stupid. You didn't say you wouldn't write. Nobody said anything about worrying if you wrote. Did they?"
But somewhere something had been said and now he could not remember it because he had been thinking ahead.
"If you want to write go ahead and I'll amuse myself. I don't have to leave you when you write do I?"
"But where would you like us to go now when people begin to come here?"
"Anywhere you want to go. Will you do it, David?"
"For how long?"
"For as long as we want. Six months. Nine months. A year."
"All right," he said.
