Read The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Online
Authors: Robert Rimmer
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (5 page)
Midhaven,
our alma mater
. . . . He sang in a reedy voice. ". . .
a fart for a
starter
. . .
there is no fairer shithouse in the land
. . . ." Larry
finished a version of the song that was well known on the campus,
probably to all except Doctor Tangle.
Yale retaliated by singing a stanza from a lurid version of Little
Red Wing that the Meyerberger boys (who worked in one of the packing
departments at the Marratt plant) had taught him. He blushed as he
sang, and was surprised to hear Cynthia and Larry pick up the chorus
and finish a dozen or more verses to the conclusion. Yale looked at
Cynthia unbelievingly. Everything she said came from her throat in a
rich, exciting, alto-pitched voice without the artificiality and the
affected manner of the few girls he had known. If Cynthia weren't so
completely feminine with long brown hair tumbling on her shoulders and
rounded breasts beneath the white shantung dress, he would have felt as
at ease with her as with any boy he had ever known.
"Here's one you never heard, I bet," Cynthia said. She
sang to a cowboy tune,
"I lined a hundred men up against a wall
and bet two bucks I could screw 'em all.
I screwed just ninety-eight and thought my blooming back would break. ...
Cynthia stopped singing. "Why, Mr. Marratt, you look shocked!"
Yale was shocked but denied it. Larry simply said, "Wow!" and then he
apologized for having to leave them. He went back to the picnic to give an
orientation talk to the trembling freshmen. He left the bottle. Cynthia
and Yale took several more gulps and eyed each other uneasily. As Yale
watched her drink, he was amazed that Cynthia's only reaction to the
hot tasting stuff was a slight wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"You think I'm awful, don't you?" she demanded, her eyes teasing him.
Yale shook his head. "Not awful," he said, "just simple. Do you know what
he'll do?" Yale jerked his thumb in the direction that Larry McQuail
had gone. "He'll tell every guy in the college about a hot babe named
Cynthia Carnell. Tomorrow your dormitory phone will ring all day. The
bets will be on who makes you first."
Cynthia turned away from him. "That's a rotten thing to say. What I say
and what I do are completely unrelated. Because I sing a dirty song
doesn't mean anything." She was crying. Yale fought an impulse to brush
the tears from her cheeks. Instead, he said, "Let's get away from here
before Larry comes back." He led her along the river beyond the picnic
grounds. There was no path. Holding her hand, he guided her over fallen
trees, and through the underbrush. He felt strangely at ease with her
and wondered whether it were Cynthia that made him feel this way or
the whiskey.
Cynthia hung to his arm. "I'm kind of dizzy," she said. "Where are we
going? We've got to go back."
"They'll never miss us. Just a bit farther; there's a cove and a little
sandy beach. I'll show you a quicker way back to the campus from there."
They stumbled out of the woods onto a tiny, sandy stretch of river bank.
"This is a tributary of the river that cuts right across my father's land,"
Yale explained.
"It's nice," Cynthia said. She flopped on the sand. "Is your home
near here?"
Yale told her that the Marratt estate covered more than one hundred acres.
His father's house was at least a half mile farther up the river.
Cynthia was impressed. Yale told her about his father. It was difficult
for him to make the portrayal objective. "He's president of the Marratt
Corporation. I'm not his pride and joy. He wanted me to go to Harvard
but my marks weren't good enough. I guess he expects that I'll eventually
go to work in the company." Yale described the factory to her. He liked
the interested way Cynthia listened to him as he talked. He tried to
convey to her that he wasn't like his father, that he couldn't get
enthusiastic over the famous line of Marratt jams, soups, ketchups and
piccalillis. Whenever Pat made a tour of the plant he was greeted with
grins and cheery hellos. He would talk to the men about their families,
and give them tips on how to run their machines. "Your old man's a
great guy, the workmen, almost without exception, told Yale. Yale envied
Pat's easy camaraderie. He wanted to emulate him but he couldn't seem
to overcome his basic shyness and engage in casual conversations and
gossip the way Pat could. His unintended withdrawal had gained him the
reputation of being a "Snotty rich man's son. Nothing like his old man."
"You don't seem so very different to me." Cynthia lay back on the sandy
edge of the river and watched the clear blue sky through half closed eyes.
"Why did you pick Midhaven College?" Yale asked. He tried to focus
Cynthia a little more closely. He wondered for a moment whether the
whiskey which burned in his stomach was going to make him sick.
She didn't answer for a moment, and then, she looked at him seriously.
"What religion do you think I am?"
Yale looked puzzled. "How do I know? Most everyone at Midhaven College
is a Protestant. Me, I'm nothing."
"I'm Jewish," she said, softly. "My father's name was Carnetsky. When he
came from Poland he changed it to Carnell."
"I still don't get it."
"Midhaven was the only college whose Jewish quota was not filled this
year," Cynthia explained. In high school, she told him, she had been on
the honor roll, but the college of her choice couldn't accept her until
next year.
Yale was surprised to learn that certain New England colleges had a
quota system that limited the number of Jewish students.
"This world is batty," he said. "Everybody in this country professes to be
upset about Hitler, yet we do the same thing and don't talk about it." His
mind was a little too fuzzy to think any further on the subject. He had a
vague recollection of discussions on the subject of Jews by his family.
A few years before he remembered that Pat had made reservations for his
family at a hotel in Florida. When Pat found that it was predominantly
occupied by Jews there had been an angry discussion with the manager
and they had gone somewhere else. It had all seemed rather silly to Yale.
"From what you have told me about your father," Cynthia smiled, "I'll bet
he doesn't like Jews." She didn't tell him that it was only in the past
year or two that she herself had become aware that her racial background
could be considered offensive to some people.
"Small worry," Yale laughed. "He doesn't like me much either. He says I
read too much and have crazy ideas. I read the whole Bible last year."
Cynthia looked at him amazed. "Oh, I'm not one of those religious twerps.
I happened to read another book that kept making reference to Biblical
characters so I just decided to read it. It took me two months."
He grinned. "There are a lot of nice Jewish girls in the Bible."
"If you read so much, you must be smart."
"Oh, I'm smart. I'm so smart that I am a freshman on trial. I'm smart . . .
queer. Anybody who reads and doesn't care for athletics and thinks he
would like to be a poet rather than a businessman is
not
smart in
my family."
"Well, I like you," Cynthia whispered.
Yale looked at her in wonder, struck by the clear, clean beauty of her
features. She had large, brown eyes that seemed to contain within them
the wisdom of her race. Her face descended from high cheekbones to a firm
chin. Her slightly angular jaw was a favorite of many artists depicting
feminine beauty. He suddenly realized that Cynthia's features resembled
his own imaginings of Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. In the years
to come, as he knew Cynthia better, the thought would often recur to
him that even beyond her own awareness she seemed to carry with her
a racial warmth and understanding. Later, he would ask her many times
if she realized that she had this transcendent beauty, and she would
look at him and laugh, and tell him that perhaps it wasn't she at all,
but something he had conjured in his own eyes and in his own brain.
Although Yale had kissed only one or two girls in his lifetime, and
those halfheartedly as the expected thing to do, he had a tremendous
desire to kiss Cynthia. The liquor gave him the courage to try.
She looked at him, amused. "You kiss like a schoolboy. I'll show you
how a farmer's daughter does it." She kissed him with her lips pressed
hard against his, her mouth slightly open. The top of her tongue brushed
his teeth. Yale blinked. The liquor was beginning to give him a dull,
throbbing headache. He saw Cynthia's face through a blur. The clear
vision of a moment ago vanished. She became a curious blend of black
hair and wide brown eyes.
"I'm drunk," he mumbled. He closed his eyes. He didn't know how long
he slept. Perhaps it was only a few minutes. He awoke to her shaking
him and saying, "Hey, freshman, wake up. I feel awfully funny. Have you
ever been drunk before?" Yale looked at her leaning over him, her hair
falling across her eyes.
"Nope," he said and wondered if the dizzy feeling he had, and an inability
to bring Cynthia into clear focus, was being drunk. "But I think I am now.
How much of that stuff did you drink?"
"Five or six swallows. I've never been drunk before either. I feel like a
bird. Woo. . . ." She stood up and then quickly sank to her knees. "I am
dizzy." She flung her arms in front of her and fell forward on the sand.
Yale looked at her, alarmed. "Hey, come on. Wake up! Are you sick?" She
didn't answer. He felt suddenly protective toward her. "Cynthia? Cynthia,
what's the matter?"
"Oh, I think I'm sick," she moaned.
He looked at her helplessly, "I've got an idea. Let's go in for a swim.
The river water is cold, it'll straighten us up." He pulled off her saddle
shoes and ankle socks. She didn't move. "Come on," he said, patting her
on the back. He noticed a zipper on the back of her dress and pulled it
down. Her dress came apart to just above her buttocks. Still she didn't
move. He started to fumble with her brassiere clasp, and she jumped up.
"Okay -- you think I'm afraid to go in?" Quickly she stripped off her
brassiere and panties, and ran into the water. "Oh! Oh!" she shouted
gaily. "It's freezing. Come on in, you coward!"
Wallowing in the water beside her, Yale knew he was blushing. He watched
her with a feeling of warm delight. Her hair was soaking wet, and dripped
over her shoulders. Her breasts were thrust high, her nipples firm and
pointed from the cold water.
"Gosh, I feel better," she said, smiling at him, Unconcerned about her
lack of clothes. "You know," she confided, "I never had but one drink
before in my life."
They walked back on the tiny beach. "Why did you drink that stuff, then?"
Yale asked.
"I don't know. I won't again, I can tell you."
They sat together on the sand. Yale sprawled on his stomach and watched
her hugging her knees. She seemed like some lovely creature out of a
fairy tale he had read years ago. Yet he was bothered. She was so wild
and unexpected. Did she go swimming naked with just anyone? The thought
made Yale jealous.
"I suppose, now, you'll tell all your friends that we went swimming
together naked," she said, looking at him speculatively.
Yale shook his head. How could he tell her that this moment was
indescribably precious to him? That this was the first time he had ever
seen a woman naked except maybe his sister and that had been years ago
when Barbara was thirteen. How could he tell Cynthia that her beauty,
the curve of her shoulders, the softness of her breasts, the arch of her
stomach and the triangle of her hair leading into her slender thighs,
was for him an emotion ineffable. An emotion that brought tears to his
eyes and joy to his very being. He wanted to somehow shout, "Look at the
wonder of the existence of us. We are alive . . . and it is good!"
A woman's body, he thought, could give the beholder the concept of God
-- a tangible evidence of mysteries beyond comprehension.
"Look at you!" she giggled. "You're a man, too!" She stared at him
thoughtfully. "You look different from my father and brother though." She
suddenly realized that it was because Yale was not circumcised. Cynthia
blushed. She wondered what he was thinking. She wanted to tell him
that other than her own brothers, he was the only boy she had ever seen
naked. Awkwardly, Yale tried to put his arm around her.
"Don't get any ideas," she said. She slapped him playfully on the stomach.
"I'm a virgin. I intend to stay that way for a while." Yale admitted
that he was a virgin, too. He told her that it was all right with him.
He didn't tell her that just being with her, sharing the warm September
sun, the quiet whisper of the trees and the murmur of the river as it
rushed by toward the ocean, was a kind of completeness in itself. Holding
her hand as he lay beside her, he realized that for the first time in his
life he was not alone; that he had a potential friend. Someone who might
come with him in a wondrous search for all the mystery and beauty that
he knew was in life. Was Cynthia that kind of person? Or was she just
another one of the crazy girls that he had known whose only interest
seemed to be what clothes they wore, what dances they were going to,
what song was on top of the Hit Parade, what dates were the smoothest,
or which boy could dance the best.
He looked at Cynthia and found her watching him. "You seem so far away,"
she said. "Come back and tell me what you were thinking."
"Why did you drink with Larry McQuail? Why did you sing that song?"
Yale demanded bluntly. "I'm not a prude, but you are too nice to get
mixed up with him."
"And why am I lying here naked with you?" she asked angrily.
"I know what you think -- that I'm a tramp."
Yale denied it. "I think you are beautiful. I don't know. I'm the romantic
type, I guess." He was silent trying to think what he meant. How could he
tell her that he felt protective toward her. He was embarrassed to try to
explain to her the feeling of exaltation he felt in her presence. The same
feeling of wonder, only sharper, more poignant, that he felt on a warm
summer evening as the day slowly departed and soft shadows of night crept
into the sky. The same wonder and emotion that made him shiver with delight
when he walked along deserted ocean beaches in the winter and felt his own
insignificance in relation to the sky and water stretched in cold and
remote infinity before his eyes.
our alma mater
. . . . He sang in a reedy voice. ". . .
a fart for a
starter
. . .
there is no fairer shithouse in the land
. . . ." Larry
finished a version of the song that was well known on the campus,
probably to all except Doctor Tangle.
Yale retaliated by singing a stanza from a lurid version of Little
Red Wing that the Meyerberger boys (who worked in one of the packing
departments at the Marratt plant) had taught him. He blushed as he
sang, and was surprised to hear Cynthia and Larry pick up the chorus
and finish a dozen or more verses to the conclusion. Yale looked at
Cynthia unbelievingly. Everything she said came from her throat in a
rich, exciting, alto-pitched voice without the artificiality and the
affected manner of the few girls he had known. If Cynthia weren't so
completely feminine with long brown hair tumbling on her shoulders and
rounded breasts beneath the white shantung dress, he would have felt as
at ease with her as with any boy he had ever known.
"Here's one you never heard, I bet," Cynthia said. She
sang to a cowboy tune,
"I lined a hundred men up against a wall
and bet two bucks I could screw 'em all.
I screwed just ninety-eight and thought my blooming back would break. ...
Cynthia stopped singing. "Why, Mr. Marratt, you look shocked!"
Yale was shocked but denied it. Larry simply said, "Wow!" and then he
apologized for having to leave them. He went back to the picnic to give an
orientation talk to the trembling freshmen. He left the bottle. Cynthia
and Yale took several more gulps and eyed each other uneasily. As Yale
watched her drink, he was amazed that Cynthia's only reaction to the
hot tasting stuff was a slight wrinkle between her eyebrows.
"You think I'm awful, don't you?" she demanded, her eyes teasing him.
Yale shook his head. "Not awful," he said, "just simple. Do you know what
he'll do?" Yale jerked his thumb in the direction that Larry McQuail
had gone. "He'll tell every guy in the college about a hot babe named
Cynthia Carnell. Tomorrow your dormitory phone will ring all day. The
bets will be on who makes you first."
Cynthia turned away from him. "That's a rotten thing to say. What I say
and what I do are completely unrelated. Because I sing a dirty song
doesn't mean anything." She was crying. Yale fought an impulse to brush
the tears from her cheeks. Instead, he said, "Let's get away from here
before Larry comes back." He led her along the river beyond the picnic
grounds. There was no path. Holding her hand, he guided her over fallen
trees, and through the underbrush. He felt strangely at ease with her
and wondered whether it were Cynthia that made him feel this way or
the whiskey.
Cynthia hung to his arm. "I'm kind of dizzy," she said. "Where are we
going? We've got to go back."
"They'll never miss us. Just a bit farther; there's a cove and a little
sandy beach. I'll show you a quicker way back to the campus from there."
They stumbled out of the woods onto a tiny, sandy stretch of river bank.
"This is a tributary of the river that cuts right across my father's land,"
Yale explained.
"It's nice," Cynthia said. She flopped on the sand. "Is your home
near here?"
Yale told her that the Marratt estate covered more than one hundred acres.
His father's house was at least a half mile farther up the river.
Cynthia was impressed. Yale told her about his father. It was difficult
for him to make the portrayal objective. "He's president of the Marratt
Corporation. I'm not his pride and joy. He wanted me to go to Harvard
but my marks weren't good enough. I guess he expects that I'll eventually
go to work in the company." Yale described the factory to her. He liked
the interested way Cynthia listened to him as he talked. He tried to
convey to her that he wasn't like his father, that he couldn't get
enthusiastic over the famous line of Marratt jams, soups, ketchups and
piccalillis. Whenever Pat made a tour of the plant he was greeted with
grins and cheery hellos. He would talk to the men about their families,
and give them tips on how to run their machines. "Your old man's a
great guy, the workmen, almost without exception, told Yale. Yale envied
Pat's easy camaraderie. He wanted to emulate him but he couldn't seem
to overcome his basic shyness and engage in casual conversations and
gossip the way Pat could. His unintended withdrawal had gained him the
reputation of being a "Snotty rich man's son. Nothing like his old man."
"You don't seem so very different to me." Cynthia lay back on the sandy
edge of the river and watched the clear blue sky through half closed eyes.
"Why did you pick Midhaven College?" Yale asked. He tried to focus
Cynthia a little more closely. He wondered for a moment whether the
whiskey which burned in his stomach was going to make him sick.
She didn't answer for a moment, and then, she looked at him seriously.
"What religion do you think I am?"
Yale looked puzzled. "How do I know? Most everyone at Midhaven College
is a Protestant. Me, I'm nothing."
"I'm Jewish," she said, softly. "My father's name was Carnetsky. When he
came from Poland he changed it to Carnell."
"I still don't get it."
"Midhaven was the only college whose Jewish quota was not filled this
year," Cynthia explained. In high school, she told him, she had been on
the honor roll, but the college of her choice couldn't accept her until
next year.
Yale was surprised to learn that certain New England colleges had a
quota system that limited the number of Jewish students.
"This world is batty," he said. "Everybody in this country professes to be
upset about Hitler, yet we do the same thing and don't talk about it." His
mind was a little too fuzzy to think any further on the subject. He had a
vague recollection of discussions on the subject of Jews by his family.
A few years before he remembered that Pat had made reservations for his
family at a hotel in Florida. When Pat found that it was predominantly
occupied by Jews there had been an angry discussion with the manager
and they had gone somewhere else. It had all seemed rather silly to Yale.
"From what you have told me about your father," Cynthia smiled, "I'll bet
he doesn't like Jews." She didn't tell him that it was only in the past
year or two that she herself had become aware that her racial background
could be considered offensive to some people.
"Small worry," Yale laughed. "He doesn't like me much either. He says I
read too much and have crazy ideas. I read the whole Bible last year."
Cynthia looked at him amazed. "Oh, I'm not one of those religious twerps.
I happened to read another book that kept making reference to Biblical
characters so I just decided to read it. It took me two months."
He grinned. "There are a lot of nice Jewish girls in the Bible."
"If you read so much, you must be smart."
"Oh, I'm smart. I'm so smart that I am a freshman on trial. I'm smart . . .
queer. Anybody who reads and doesn't care for athletics and thinks he
would like to be a poet rather than a businessman is
not
smart in
my family."
"Well, I like you," Cynthia whispered.
Yale looked at her in wonder, struck by the clear, clean beauty of her
features. She had large, brown eyes that seemed to contain within them
the wisdom of her race. Her face descended from high cheekbones to a firm
chin. Her slightly angular jaw was a favorite of many artists depicting
feminine beauty. He suddenly realized that Cynthia's features resembled
his own imaginings of Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. In the years
to come, as he knew Cynthia better, the thought would often recur to
him that even beyond her own awareness she seemed to carry with her
a racial warmth and understanding. Later, he would ask her many times
if she realized that she had this transcendent beauty, and she would
look at him and laugh, and tell him that perhaps it wasn't she at all,
but something he had conjured in his own eyes and in his own brain.
Although Yale had kissed only one or two girls in his lifetime, and
those halfheartedly as the expected thing to do, he had a tremendous
desire to kiss Cynthia. The liquor gave him the courage to try.
She looked at him, amused. "You kiss like a schoolboy. I'll show you
how a farmer's daughter does it." She kissed him with her lips pressed
hard against his, her mouth slightly open. The top of her tongue brushed
his teeth. Yale blinked. The liquor was beginning to give him a dull,
throbbing headache. He saw Cynthia's face through a blur. The clear
vision of a moment ago vanished. She became a curious blend of black
hair and wide brown eyes.
"I'm drunk," he mumbled. He closed his eyes. He didn't know how long
he slept. Perhaps it was only a few minutes. He awoke to her shaking
him and saying, "Hey, freshman, wake up. I feel awfully funny. Have you
ever been drunk before?" Yale looked at her leaning over him, her hair
falling across her eyes.
"Nope," he said and wondered if the dizzy feeling he had, and an inability
to bring Cynthia into clear focus, was being drunk. "But I think I am now.
How much of that stuff did you drink?"
"Five or six swallows. I've never been drunk before either. I feel like a
bird. Woo. . . ." She stood up and then quickly sank to her knees. "I am
dizzy." She flung her arms in front of her and fell forward on the sand.
Yale looked at her, alarmed. "Hey, come on. Wake up! Are you sick?" She
didn't answer. He felt suddenly protective toward her. "Cynthia? Cynthia,
what's the matter?"
"Oh, I think I'm sick," she moaned.
He looked at her helplessly, "I've got an idea. Let's go in for a swim.
The river water is cold, it'll straighten us up." He pulled off her saddle
shoes and ankle socks. She didn't move. "Come on," he said, patting her
on the back. He noticed a zipper on the back of her dress and pulled it
down. Her dress came apart to just above her buttocks. Still she didn't
move. He started to fumble with her brassiere clasp, and she jumped up.
"Okay -- you think I'm afraid to go in?" Quickly she stripped off her
brassiere and panties, and ran into the water. "Oh! Oh!" she shouted
gaily. "It's freezing. Come on in, you coward!"
Wallowing in the water beside her, Yale knew he was blushing. He watched
her with a feeling of warm delight. Her hair was soaking wet, and dripped
over her shoulders. Her breasts were thrust high, her nipples firm and
pointed from the cold water.
"Gosh, I feel better," she said, smiling at him, Unconcerned about her
lack of clothes. "You know," she confided, "I never had but one drink
before in my life."
They walked back on the tiny beach. "Why did you drink that stuff, then?"
Yale asked.
"I don't know. I won't again, I can tell you."
They sat together on the sand. Yale sprawled on his stomach and watched
her hugging her knees. She seemed like some lovely creature out of a
fairy tale he had read years ago. Yet he was bothered. She was so wild
and unexpected. Did she go swimming naked with just anyone? The thought
made Yale jealous.
"I suppose, now, you'll tell all your friends that we went swimming
together naked," she said, looking at him speculatively.
Yale shook his head. How could he tell her that this moment was
indescribably precious to him? That this was the first time he had ever
seen a woman naked except maybe his sister and that had been years ago
when Barbara was thirteen. How could he tell Cynthia that her beauty,
the curve of her shoulders, the softness of her breasts, the arch of her
stomach and the triangle of her hair leading into her slender thighs,
was for him an emotion ineffable. An emotion that brought tears to his
eyes and joy to his very being. He wanted to somehow shout, "Look at the
wonder of the existence of us. We are alive . . . and it is good!"
A woman's body, he thought, could give the beholder the concept of God
-- a tangible evidence of mysteries beyond comprehension.
"Look at you!" she giggled. "You're a man, too!" She stared at him
thoughtfully. "You look different from my father and brother though." She
suddenly realized that it was because Yale was not circumcised. Cynthia
blushed. She wondered what he was thinking. She wanted to tell him
that other than her own brothers, he was the only boy she had ever seen
naked. Awkwardly, Yale tried to put his arm around her.
"Don't get any ideas," she said. She slapped him playfully on the stomach.
"I'm a virgin. I intend to stay that way for a while." Yale admitted
that he was a virgin, too. He told her that it was all right with him.
He didn't tell her that just being with her, sharing the warm September
sun, the quiet whisper of the trees and the murmur of the river as it
rushed by toward the ocean, was a kind of completeness in itself. Holding
her hand as he lay beside her, he realized that for the first time in his
life he was not alone; that he had a potential friend. Someone who might
come with him in a wondrous search for all the mystery and beauty that
he knew was in life. Was Cynthia that kind of person? Or was she just
another one of the crazy girls that he had known whose only interest
seemed to be what clothes they wore, what dances they were going to,
what song was on top of the Hit Parade, what dates were the smoothest,
or which boy could dance the best.
He looked at Cynthia and found her watching him. "You seem so far away,"
she said. "Come back and tell me what you were thinking."
"Why did you drink with Larry McQuail? Why did you sing that song?"
Yale demanded bluntly. "I'm not a prude, but you are too nice to get
mixed up with him."
"And why am I lying here naked with you?" she asked angrily.
"I know what you think -- that I'm a tramp."
Yale denied it. "I think you are beautiful. I don't know. I'm the romantic
type, I guess." He was silent trying to think what he meant. How could he
tell her that he felt protective toward her. He was embarrassed to try to
explain to her the feeling of exaltation he felt in her presence. The same
feeling of wonder, only sharper, more poignant, that he felt on a warm
summer evening as the day slowly departed and soft shadows of night crept
into the sky. The same wonder and emotion that made him shiver with delight
when he walked along deserted ocean beaches in the winter and felt his own
insignificance in relation to the sky and water stretched in cold and
remote infinity before his eyes.
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