The lights fell into the river and dissolved, the dark wash took them and
carried them into streaks of lesser, more fluid light. Even so, if there
could have been country silence for five minutes at a time, the running
river, the hills so disturbed with light beyond, might have worn some
aspect of peace. But even in the high bird's nest of the apartment there
was no real silence, only a pretending at silence, like the forced quiet
of a child told to keep still in a corner--the two people dining together
could talk in whispers, if they wanted, and still be heard, but always at
the back of the brain of either ran a thin pulsation of mumbling sound
like the buzz of a kettle-drum softly struck in a passage of music where
the orchestra talks full-voiced--the night sound of the city, breathing
and moving and saying words.
They must have been married rather contentedly for quite a while now, they
said so little of importance at dinner and yet seemed so quietly pleased
at having dinner together and so neat at understanding half sentences
without asking explanations. That would have been the first conclusion of
anybody who had been able to take out a wall and watch their doll-house
unobserved.
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