On the rear platform of the orange-painted train moving deliberately
along the Florida coast Lee was first aware of the still, saturating
heat; that, in itself, was enough to release him from the winter-like
grip of Eastlake. He lost all sense of time, of hurry, of the necessity
of occupation as opposed to idleness, of idleness contrasted with
sleep. The promise of satiation, of inevitability, steeped his being in
a pleasant lethargy. It was the same to him if they moved or stopped,
whether they arrived at the next destination or remained forever in a
sandy monotony of tomato fields or by a slow pass of water cutting the
harshness of palmettos. On the viaducts he gazed with half-closed eyes
across the sapphire and emerald green and purple water; or, directly
under him, he looked down incuriously into a tide so clear that it
seemed no more than a breath ruffling the sand beneath.
Savina, who had discarded cloth for dull white linen--she wished, she
explained, to make the transition as sharply as possible--was more
alertly interested in their constantly shifting surroundings; they were
significant to her as the milestones of her incredible escape. On the
steamer for Havana, marking their effects deposited in a cabin with a
double iron bed and unpleasantly ubiquitous basins, she explained to
Lee that she never got seasick; but he might have gathered that, she
pointed out, by her willingness to undertake Cuba.
Pages:
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301