The House by the Sea Read Online Free Page A

roast chicken, creamed onions that Judy used to make so well, cranberries that Gracie Warner brought when they came, picked from their own bog, Warner squash, and Woodson-Barton potatoes. All these vegetables from neighborly gardens made it a specially blest meal. The chestnut stuffing brought memories of my mother. The mince pie was served on the Bavarian plates (with their bright pink and green flowers) Anne Thorp gave me when she broke up the Cambridge house. In every family memories are woven into a meal like this. It has a solemnity because of them. Our silver forks came from Judy’s mother, the shell pattern, and her mother, I suddenly realized, came from Portland … so it all comes round full circle or nearly.
    On another level, Thanksgiving this year was, for me, the reading of a manuscript, sent out of the blue, to ask my opinion about publication. Do people have any idea what they ask? It seems so simple: tell me what you think of my work. But it is not simple and causes me great anxiety and even anguish. Wholehearted unequivocal praise is what is needed, and what if one cannot honestly give it? That is where the anxiety comes in. I do not pretend to be a critic, except of my own work. I do not wish to be an authority. Is it churlish to resent such demands? This writer is a dancer. What if people constantly came to her door to dance for her and did so because they felt an affinity with her dancing? Would she welcome such interruptions? This request has ended in an uproar inside me of resentment, guilt (because I couldn’t like her work more), and a sense of waste.
    Anyway, yesterday ended very well. Judy and I watched a long “special” on Churchill, and I was happy to see that she could be wholly absorbed over such a long span. She cannot read for even a few minutes any longer.
    It’s hard to realize that for most young people the Battle of Britain, the Normandy beaches, the desert rats—all these things people of my age experienced so deeply—are simply history like the War of the Roses. The best thing the film did was to quote some of Churchill’s orders to his ministers—amazing sense of detail and warmth of imagination about what people were going through. For instance, a recommendation to the Minister of Food that they try to cut down on the bureaucracy about rationing. Moving, too, to see him painting under a big umbrella. And terrifying to see once more how ill Roosevelt looked at Yalta, a ghost of himself.

Sunday, December 1st
    I WENT TO BED feeling ill and was afraid I had caught the twenty-four-hour flu that is about, but this morning I was able to get up as usual to make our breakfast, do the chores, bring up wood from the cellar, build the fire, change my sheets, empty the wastebaskets. I enjoy these chores when I am feeling well, but today I wanted to lie down and sleep. Finally at 9:30 I did. Judy was out with the dog. When they came back she left him outside and he barked and barked, so rest was out of the question. Finally I called down to ask her to get him in, please. For some reason she didn’t do this. So I ran down and got him in myself, screaming with frustration. One minute later she had let him out and he was barking again! At such times it is as though Judy were possessed by a spirit of nay-saying … I don’t know what else to call it. Her restlessness is getting worse, so I can never come up here now for even an hour without being aware that she is roving around, in and out, and of course these last days I have been terrified that she would go into the woods and get shot, or Tamas get shot (he looks so like a fox).

Tuesday, December 3rd
    W E WERE PURGED by a magnificent storm all day yesterday. How glorious it was! Fifty-mile gusts of wind driving the waves in, and almost the highest tide on record (did Raymond say fourteen feet?). Judy and I put on boots and raincoats, and Tamas came along, to see the surf at its height. We could hardly