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miles from here. Why didn’t you come with me instead of going to New York?”
    â€œBecause I wasn’t asked,” he smiled. “Did you go alone?”
    â€œI picked Dave up at the club—and for a hundred miles he pawed me while I drove. That’s nice. That’s your sex in this generation.”
    He didn’t know who Dave was; when she spoke like that, he had no retort, no answer, no connection even, and he said instead: “Get dressed now, Fern, because Elliott’s coming for dinner.”
    â€œI’ve got a date afterward,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me that Elliott was coming?”

8. A t precisely seven minutes after six, provid ing that there was no interference from the weather and no unexpected change in schedule, the westbound plane from Boston could be heard from the main street of Clarkton. At twelve minutes to six, the evening train from Worcester arrived, and at fourteen minutes after six, usually, the tower of the Catholic church would sound a short passage of bells—this last the only individual, special local custom, and one that dated back to the War Between the States. Somewhere in the general time given—a full hour and a half before the same custom was observed at the Lowell house—most of the twenty-two-thousand-and-odd folk of Clarkton sat down to their evening meal, called by most supper, by a minority dinner, but however called eaten at the same time by almost all. At that time, on this evening of the sixth of December in 1945, the streets were almost deserted, the main street which dipped through the valley, bisecting it from the old millpond at one end to the big iron bridge at the other, the side streets that were to the main street what the bones of a fish are to the spinal cord, and the four streets—or avenues, as they were called—which ran parallel to the main street. With some initial attempt at historical recollection, the main street was called Concord Way, but practicality came with the big plant, and the avenues that paralleled it were simply known as First and Second and Third and Fourth Avenues, while the cross streets were impersonally named after trees, Linden and Chestnut and Maple and so forth. A sharp, cold wind from the Berkshires had blown away the threat of snow, bringing cold instead, the biting winter cold that seems to freeze the stars into a stage-setting of a sky. Most of the merchants closed up early this night, realizing that it was not and could not very well become a night for shopping, and as they dimmed their lights, the glow of red-hot salamanders at the end of Concord Way, where the main gate of the plant was, became more apparent, as if troops of some sort were camped down there in the valley alongside the millpond—giving that sort of fanciful suggestion added reality in the fine frame of stars and tumbled hills.
    Joe Santana, whose barber shop on the corner of Concord and Linden was probably the best in town—considering that he only cut hair and shaved—had already pulled down the shades in the window, and locked the front door. A thin, hard-featured boy sat in the chair, and Joe, having already trimmed with the razor, was giving those few random final touches, the mystery of haircutting that seems in some way to mark the ultimate skill of the barber. The boy in the chair wore a uniform, the discharge insignia sewn on, and enough overseas bars to make for three years. It was warm in the barber shop, and from the apartment in back, where the Santana family lived, came the good odor of a veal saute and a bubbling tomato sauce. Joe was talking—with some customers he always talked, and with others not at all—when the boy interrupted him to mention the food, commend the smell, and remark what a stinking cold night it was turning out to be.
    â€œStay for supper,” Joe said.
    â€œNo—I got a date over at Midland.”
    â€œJohnny,” Joe said