The Forester’s Daughter
When he is getting into his car, a stranger who holds his cards close to his chest approaches.
‘I understand you have a dog you’d sell.’
‘A dog?’ says Deegan.
‘Aye,’ he says, ‘a gun dog. Do you still have him?’
‘Well, I do.’ Deegan is set back on his heel but he recovers quickly. ‘I bought him last September but I’ve little time for hunting and it’s a shame to see him wasted.’
Deegan goes on to describe a retriever. He begins to talk easily about pheasants and how his dog can rise them, how the soup off a pheasant tastes finer than anything you can find in a hotel. He talks about the turf basket and how it is never empty since the dog came to the house. As soon as he mentions turf, the man smiles but Deegan does not notice, for he is remembering the girl on her birthday and how she and the retriever now bathe in the same water. But it is too late to back down.
From the archives
·
1972
Invisible Cities
"The other ambassadors warn me of famines, extortions, conspiracies, or else they inform me of newly discovered turquoise mines, advantageous prices in marten furs, suggestions for supplying damascened blades. And you?" the Great Khan asked Polo, "you return from lands equally distant and you can tell me only the thoughts that come to a man who sits on his doorstep at evening to enjoy the cool air. What is the use, then, of all your traveling?"
"It is evening. We are seated on the steps of your palace. There is a slight breeze," Marco Polo answered. "Whatever country my words may evoke around you, you will see it from such a vantage point, even if instead of the palace there is a village on pilings and the breeze carries the stench of a muddy estuary."
"My gaze is that of a man meditating, lost in thought -- I admit it. But yours? You cross archipelagoes, tundras, mountain ranges. You would do as well never moving from here."
Read more of this excerpt...
Invisible Cities
"The other ambassadors warn me of famines, extortions, conspiracies, or else they inform me of newly discovered turquoise mines, advantageous prices in marten furs, suggestions for supplying damascened blades. And you?" the Great Khan asked Polo, "you return from lands equally distant and you can tell me only the thoughts that come to a man who sits on his doorstep at evening to enjoy the cool air. What is the use, then, of all your traveling?"
"It is evening. We are seated on the steps of your palace. There is a slight breeze," Marco Polo answered. "Whatever country my words may evoke around you, you will see it from such a vantage point, even if instead of the palace there is a village on pilings and the breeze carries the stench of a muddy estuary."
"My gaze is that of a man meditating, lost in thought -- I admit it. But yours? You cross archipelagoes, tundras, mountain ranges. You would do as well never moving from here."
Read more of this excerpt...