I [The House in Washington Square]
II [Continuation of the History of a Genius]
III [The Confession]
IV [How is it Possible to Stop Loving]
V [Love by the Sea]
VI [The Insistent Past]
VII [In Which John Smith Unburdens His Conscience]
VIII [The Place of the Statues]
IX [The Energy of Being]
X [In the Garden]
XI [Flames]
XII [Love Confronts Despair]
XIII [The Escape]
BOOK I
THE BIRD IN THE BOX
CHAPTER I
THE LONG JOURNEY AND THE LONGER ONE
The new vessel, gay with swelling scarves of bunting, ornamented from stem to stern with floating flags that kissed the breeze, rested easily on the stocks. The ways under her had been greased, the space before her in the river cleared. High on the prow her name Merida shone in gold letters. Every eye was upon her.
Grimy faces looked from shop windows. The windows of the bending-shed, the blackboard-shed, the pipe-cutting shop, the sheet-iron shop, the joiner-shop, the brass-foundry,—all were filled with countenances blackened by labour. Similar countenances peered from the masts of vessels still in the slips, and from the heights of the immense travelling cranes and floating derricks. These gigantic and uncouth machines seemed to await the launch with an eagerness of their own. Had not each, in its own way, helped to fashion her—this marvel of a new ship?
The contrivances for drilling, chipping, caulking, blowing rivet-heating fires seemed to hold their breath, so unwonted was their stillness at this hour; while the mammoth pontoon, whose duty was still to be performed,—that of transporting the eighty-ton boiler a distance of one hundred feet and depositing it, a living heart, within the vessel,—the pontoon seemed to be lost in speculation.
The stocks gave no sign. Amid all the excitement of the yard, these great mother-arms of wood awaited stoically the instant when they must release their burden. All the morning a swarm of workmen had been busy loosening their tenacious hold on the new vessel.
"She'll go out at the turn of the tide," remarked a reporter; "that chap over there with an eyeglass will give the signal. He's launched over a hundred vessels, and never a hitch."