"You're in, Antoine." Davis put out his hand and Antoine shook it. "I'll see about getting your room in shape this afternoon," he said, as he was leaving, with a pleased smile on his face, as though he had succeeded in a highly profitable piece of business.

"Well, Mike," Antoine said after Davis had left, "I seem to have found a home. Thanks to you. I may even be able to pay back some of the money you have advanced for me. Although," he added hurriedly, "that is definitely not a promise. And for once, merci d, Dieu, no questions asked, where is your work permit, where is your union card, what is your Social Security number, that kind of fascist harassment. Though maybe I made a mistake in using my real name when I came here. I could easily have invented another name."

"Nobody'll bother you. Jimmy Davis is in with everybody. And he knows he's got something dirt cheap. He'll keep everybody off your back, well, at least until the season is over in April."

"Please do not remind me of April," Antoine said gloomily. "You are beginning to sound like Susan. She learned the fable about the grasshopper and the ant in French class in high school and whenever she thinks I am doing something extravagant, like buying tickets from a speculator at grotesque prices to take her to the theatre or inviting her to dine at a French restaurant where they charge like bank robbers for a bowl of soup, she is likely to recite, 'La cigale, ayant chante tout I'ete, se trouva fort depourvu quand la bise fut venu/ In pure English that means, the grasshopper-that's me-having sung all summer, found himself in the shit when winter came. I cannot change my character just because a girl learned a foolish little poem in high school. And her accent, besides, is abominable."

Michael laughed. "By the way, where is she?"

"Skiing. Left me in my agony with a careless wave of her beautiful hand. If that girl was as fond of sex as she is of skiing, she would be known as one of the greatest courtesans since Madame Pompadour. Anyway, she said she'd be back for lunch. Now that I am immobilized, she will take advantage of my condition to make time with you."

"Trust me, mon vieux"

"A man with a broken leg cannot afford the luxury of trusting anybody. Especially someone who looks like you. Older women may love invalids but young women despise them."

"Is that another French saying?"

"That is the saying of an experienced man of the world, namely myself. I plead with you, do not let her catch you in a weak moment."

"Antoine, I never know whether you're serious or you're joking." "Half and half. It is part of my charm. I have no looks so I have to depend upon other attributes. Do you think a glass of wine would keep my bones from knitting?"

"I'll send up a bottle when we go in for lunch."

"Remember," Antoine said, "I was kind to you when you were out of action in the hospital, although out of friendship I hid my revulsion when I saw what they had done to your face."

"I will remember," Michael said. "Forever."

"If they have a decent Beaujolais," Antoine called after Michael as Michael was going out the door, "that would be nice."

After lunch that afternoon he skied with Susan. She was fun to ski with, zestful and daring and constantly delighted with the speed and glowing weather and the changing shapes of the mountains with their low-hanging flecks of clouds. When they finished they stopped off at the Monadnock bar and had tea with black rum in it. "Sometimes I wonder," she said thoughtfully, "if I could ski every day of my life, would I be happy. I guess not." She answered her own question. "When I see people whose life is one long holiday, they seem pitiful to me. If you don't work, your holidays seem like drudgery."

"You like your work, don't you?"

"I love it. The result isn't all that valuable-making foolish women think that I can mix a magic powder or prepare an elixir that will make them beautiful or at least acceptable, but I do it well and there's always the element of surprise-maybe one day we will find something that will turn ugly ducklings into swans. That would be worthwhile, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose so," Michael said. He looked at her closely. In the city she was always a walking advertisement for the products she worked on, but today he saw that she was wearing no makeup and even her nails were natural colored.

"I see you're noticing that I'm just plain Jane today," she said, laughing. "That's because I don't want to insult the mountains." Then she became sober. "You're not going to stay up here forever, are you?"

"When I ski, I'm not on holiday, I'm working," Michael said. "I get paid for it."

"Oh, come on now," she said impatiently.

"In my office, there were quite a few men who felt like you about their work. Even if they knew it wasn't of world-shaking importance and maybe even guessed that it was harmful in the overall scheme of things, they gloried in the challenge, and it wasn't only in making the money. When he got drunk my boss used to boast that in the morning he couldn't wait to get to his desk, that it was like the Super Bowl every day for him. And he had enough money to do whatever he wanted to do for the rest of his life, without worrying about a thing." "You can't tell me that you believe escorting ladies down little hills is a challenge to you."

"No," Michael admitted. "I'm just waiting and seeing."

"For what?"

"For waiting and seeing." Michael grinned. "Naturally, if I were a great artist, a painter or a poet or a great athlete, or even just thought so, I'd think what I was doing was valuable and I guess I'd be like my boss when he sat down at his desk. Or even like Antoine, doing something that gives him and other people so much pleasure. . . . But I'm none of those things. I'm a manipulator of numbers for profit, other peoples' profit, although that isn't what really bothers me. After twelve years I felt I was living in a void. And stuck in the void with me were maybe eight million other souls, whirling around, making believe the void didn't exist. Here, at least for the moment, maybe for a couple of weeks, maybe for a couple of seasons, I'm out of the void. Susan," he said, a little plaintively, "this isn't the sort of conversation we should be having after an afternoon like the one we just had."

"No, it isn't," she said. "You should be telling me how marvelously I ski and how beautiful I am and how you can't live without me."

"Yes, I should," Michael said good-humoredly, "and it is a flaw in my character that I can't."

"You know, you're the one man I've ever set my cap for-what a nice old-fashioned expression to cover my essential lewdness-" She giggled. "The only one I haven't made even a dent in." She sighed melodramatically. "Well, win some, lose some. Still, if it's some weird notion you have about Antoine and me . . ."

"Antoine may have something to do with it," Michael said, "but not all that much. Our schedules and destinations, yours and mine, just didn't happen to mesh. Maybe five years ago-before I got married. . . ."

"God save me from honorable men. Oh, that's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Honorable men. Antoine isn't one of them." She was speaking very seriously now. "I thought you should know. I know he's amusing and talented and you think of him as a kind of darling clown and I've gone along with the clowning. Clowns are okay in a circus, Michael. In the home, their tricks can be nasty." "Antoine?" Michael said incredulously. "He wouldn't hurt a fly." "Little you know," Susan said. "I'll tell you a little story about poor dear amusing Antoine, who wouldn't hurt a fly. He was introduced to me by a girlfriend of mine, who was married, with a child. She fell in love with him, she told her husband, she was preparing to get a divorce because Antoine said he was going to marry her. She loaned him some money. A considerable amount. She wasn't all that rich, either, and she couldn't afford it. And, naturally, he didn't give any of it back. The night he met me, he called me after he had taken her home and tried to get me to invite him to my place. And then two weeks later he went chasing after another woman to Paris. How do you like that for a prankish bit of clowning?"

"Not terribly amusing," Michael said quietly.

"And the first day he got back from Paris," Susan went on, "he called me-this was after two years-and asked me to marry him. If you want to know what I really think-it wasn't because he was so wildly infatuated with my beauty, as he keeps telling me-it was because he could then become an American citizen."

"I'm sorry you told me all this, Susan," Michael said.

"Let him amuse you," she said, "but don't ever vouch for him- for anything. You've already gone too far for him in this town. And don't ever depend upon him."

"You've ruined a perfectly fine afternoon, Susan," Michael sighed. "People ought to have tags on them, describing the contents of the package. I must talk to someone at the Pure Food and Drug Administration in Washington about it."

"Do you now want me to say something on the subject of you and the formidable Madam Heggener?" she said challengingly.

"I do not."

"I didn't think you would," she said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Using the excuse that he didn't want to leave the hotel until Antoine was mobile enough to get around well enough on his crutches so that he didn't need any help, Michael postponed moving into the cottage for another week. During that time, when the weather was fine, he skied every morning with Andreas Heggener. He was surprised to see how much pleasure it gave him to see the man get stronger and stronger. While they still stayed away from the Black Knight, they ran all the other slopes, doing three, then four a morning, with Heggener moving more swiftly and with greater assurance every day.

On a clear, sunny morning, when they had done four runs and Michael had suggested that it was enough, Heggener had shaken his head and had said, "I'd like to do one more."

Michael hesitated, then said, "If you feel up to it. . ."

"No problem," Heggener said.

So they went up in the chair lift again. As they soared above the trees, Heggener said, "Have you noticed something?"

"I've noticed that you're really skiing," Michael said.

"Not that," said Heggener. "Haven't you noticed that not once today have I coughed? Last night I threw all my medicines away. It may be meaningless. But then again, it may not. And I've put on two pounds this week. That, too, may be meaningless and it may not." They rode in silence. Michael was so moved that he didn't trust himself to say anything for a full minute. Then he said, softly, "Andreas, how do you say 'We are blessed' in German?"

"Why in German?" Heggener looked over at him, puzzled.

"It might mean more to you in your first language."

Heggener touched his arm lightly, in what might have been a gesture of appreciation or amusement. Then he said, quietly, "Wir sind gesegnet."

"Wir sind gesegnetMichael repeated. He glanced across at Heggener. A single tear was running down the man's cheek.

"You are a delicate man," Heggener said. "Forgive me. I am growing old before my time. Old men weep."

Somehow, Michael thought, by luck, I have come to the right place at the right time.

A week later, Antoine was hopping around on his crutches with great agility and moved into the annex behind The Chimney Comer. Michael waited for a day when rain and a thaw made skiing impossible to move his own belongings into the cottage on the Heggener estate. Unluckily, it was the Saturday on which the first hang-gliding exhibition and the race for which Rita was entered were scheduled and both events had to be postponed. "I don't know whether to laugh or cry," Rita said when she heard the news about the race. "All week long I've had two different kinds of dreams. One about winning it and drinking champagne out of a big silver trophy cup. The other about falling at the first gate and hearing everybody in town laughing and laughing."

"Dreams're always extreme," Michael said. "The next time you dream, try to settle for something more moderate, like coming in fifth and having a Coke after it."

"It's funny you used that word," Rita said, soberly. "My father keeps saying that I don't know how to be moderate in anything. He thinks you're a bad influence on me."

"He does?" Michael said, surprised.

"Don't get me wrong," Rita said hastily. "He likes you, he thinks what you're doing for Mr. Heggener shows you have a big heart. But he says anybody who goes in for hang-gliding is a dangerous example for the young." She giggled. "You know, if Daddy ever took a vacation, I'd try it myself. There're a couple of houses in town where people I know live that I'd like to fly over and bombard."

"I know what you mean," Michael said, laughing.

"He's against my singing at The Chimney Comer, too. He says if I have a success, it'll turn my head, because I'm so young. My mother's for it, though. I get my voice from her and in church we sometimes sing duets together. My father grumbles, but he doesn't argue with my mother. Nobody does, not even Daddy. But he wants me to go to college in the autumn, like my brother, and study to become a lawyer. He says in this world you have to know your rights and being a lawyer you know how to get them. Even so, my mother's got him to agree to come to The Chimney Corner the first night I sing there."

"When will that be?"

"Next Saturday night. Antoine and I're working up a program. He sure knows his music, that one-legged Frenchman. You'd never guess it from talking to him, but he has an awful temper when you work with him and you don't do what he says."

"Is Mr. Davis paying you well?"

"I don't know what well is," Rita said. "They don't pay me anything at the church. Ten dollars a night, three nights a week. That's pretty good, isn't it?"

"Pretty good," Michael said, thinking, I'm going to have a little talk with that miserly saloonkeeper.

"I hate to see you leave, Michael," Rita said, as she walked with him to where the Porsche was standing, fully packed. "It won't be the same without you here. You treat everybody like a human being. A lot of the people we get never took human being lessons. You ought to hear what some of the help here have to say about some of the guests, people with their name in the paper all the time, leaders of society, as they say in the articles. It would turn your hair." She giggled again and waved as he started off.

Michael drove directly to the big house to announce his arrival. The house was built in a style that the architect must have imagined was like a Southern mansion, with tall white pillars going up to the second floor. It looked comfortable, but out of place in the harsh Vermont landscape. It was the first time Michael had gone there and he rang the front doorbell and waited. The door was opened by Andreas Heggener. Michael had called earlier to say that skiing was out of the question that morning and that he was moving to the cottage around eleven and Heggener had asked him to stop by the house and have a drink for luck with him.

"Come in, come in, neighbor," Heggener said. As usual, he was impeccably groomed and dressed, his white hair and beard carefully brushed, his face, which was now tanned, freshly shaved. He was wearing a collar and tie and a loose corduroy suit and his brown shoes were polished to a high, rich gleam. The seventy-year-old maid might be deaf and unable to understand any language but German, but she certainly knew how to polish shoes.

Heggener led Michael into the large living room, where one long wall from the floor to the high ceiling was devoted to books, with a librarian's ladder standing in front of the cases. A splendid faded old Persian carpet covered most of the floor and among the paintings on the walls there was a Kandinsky and a Kokoschka. Michael's trips to the galleries and museums with Tracy enabled him to recognize the painters, but all he said was "What a nice room," because he didn't want Heggener to think that he had any pretenses as a connoisseur of art.

There was a table set up for backgammon, with two high-backed wooden chairs on each side of it, in front of the French windows that gave onto the red-bricked porch and the row of white pillars. The room was uncluttered and sparingly furnished and gave evidence of Eva's meticulous sense of order.

When I am his age, Michael thought, I would like to live in a room like this. But not now.

"Eleven o'clock," Heggener said. "What should our pleasure be at this time of the morning? Would you object to a Bloody Mary?"

"Not strenuously," Michael said. Heggener went over to a sideboard, where there were bottles and glasses, an ice bucket and a silver pitcher filled with tomato juice. Michael watched as Heggener poured the vodka over ice cubes in a glass shaker, then added the rest of the ingredients. His movements were deft and precise and he obviously enjoyed bartending. He fixed a silver cap over the shaker and shook the mixture briefly, then poured the drinks into two large-bowled wine glasses. He gave one to Michael and lifted his own. "Prost," he said, "my German-speaking friend."

"Prost," Michael said.

"Ah," Heggener said, after the first sip. "The perfect thing for eleven o'clock. Eva thinks it is a barbaric drink, but I have begun to grow a bit tired of her Austrian wine."

It was the first time Heggener had said even one mild word of criticism of his wife to Michael. "She's in town, at the veterinary's," Heggener said. "Bruno needs some sort of shot. But this is a little gift from both of us, to keep you company in case you get lonely in your little cottage." He picked a box with a quart bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label in it off the sideboard and handed it ceremoniously to Michael.

"Thanks," Michael said, putting the box down on a library table behind one of the sofas. "It might just come in handy on a cold night."

"Sit down, sit down," Heggener said and went over to the backgammon table. He sat in one of the wooden chairs and motioned to Michael to seat himself in the other. "I like to sit here and look out," Heggener said. "The view is pleasant, even on a nasty morning like this." He cleared his throat, as though preparing to make an announcement. "I understand," he said formally, "that Eva has been trying to prevail upon you to stop our skiing together."

"She has mentioned it once or twice."

"So she tells me." Heggener sipped at his drink. "I trust that our- ah-divergence of opinion-has not made you uncomfortable."

"If I thought it was doing you any harm, I'd tell you so," Michael said.

"She is a determined woman," Heggener said, "and is used to having her way. But she has an absurd faith in doctors. A faith that I have given up for some years now. I doubt even that Bruno needs the shot that the veterinary is inflicting upon him at this moment." He chuckled. "Oh, I almost forgot to give you the key to the cottage." He fumbled briefly in the side pocket of his coat and took out a heavy iron key. He weighed it in his hand and smiled. "It must be at least a hundred years old. In an emergency you might even use it as a weapon." He gave it to Michael. "Will one key do you?"

"Until I lose it," Michael said. He was sure that another key existed and that Eva had it.

"I may not be able to ski with you next week, Michael."

"I'll miss our mornings together."

"It's polite of you to say so. Eva is insisting that I go to New York to the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for a series of tests. There is a doctor there that she has heard of . . ." He shrugged. "There is always a doctor she has heard of," he said, and there was a note of weariness in his voice. "We had the worst scene of our marriage the night I threw away all my medicines. She accused me-and I'm afraid, you-of shortening my life. I tell you this because I don't want you to be surprised if she turns on you."

"Thank you," Michael said. He didn't say that nothing that Eva would do or say could surprise him.

"I have not yet given in. But in the end-for the sake of peace . . ." He left the sentence unfinished. "But, on the brighter side, it will give you more time to ski with that beautiful Miss Hartley. It's amazing that she isn't married. A young lady as pretty and delightful as that."

"She prizes her freedom."

Heggener nodded. "It is a state that one can overvalue. It is the old saying-giving up the good in the search of the best. You, I understand, are still married. I'm not prying, am I?" he said hastily.

"Of course not. As far as I know," Michael said, "my marriage is public knowledge. We've been separated for quite some time."

"Am I wrong in feeling that you miss her?"

"No," Michael said slowly, "you're not wrong."

"If it's painful for you to speak about it, we can talk of other things."

"She demanded that I give up something it was impossible for me to give up," Michael said. He knew so much about the man opposite him who was now his friend and his responsibility that it seemed to him only justice that Heggener should know more about him. "Somewhat as your wife thinks about you, she thought that I was shortening my life. It all started on our honeymoon, when I took a bad fall in a ski race because I was skiing above my talent, taking risks . . ." It was coming out in a gush now, in a relief from pressure that had been building up ever since he had left Tracy. "And she had the bad luck to be on the spot when I was doing some skydiving with friends and two of them were killed. I don't blame her and I suppose you don't blame Eva, but she was asking me to give up just those moments that made me feel that life was worth living. If I had given in and had stayed with her our marriage eventually would have been worse than any divorce."

"Everyone to his own destructive necessary passions," Heggener said. "Yours, mine, Eva's, your wife's. We live by them, we die by them. We are understood and misunderstood by them. When we believe we are shouting, we are screaming soundlessly, as we do in dreams. My dream is a young wife, whom I can no longer serve, except as a refuge. In our day, we like to believe that we can explain all behavior-sane, insane, almost sane. In the case of the gay and high-spirited young woman I married, there were explanations-although it was years before I learned them. But after the first manifestation- she left me and disappeared entirely for two months-I consulted with her father, who by the way is an old rascal and not to be trusted at any time. He told me Eva's mother had committed suicide, as had her brother. That much, at least, I found to be true. The father also told me that as a child, when Eva was denied anything, no matter how trivial or impossible, she would fall into convulsions or merely run away from home until she was brought back by the police. Genes, I'm afraid, play their role in all this, but it is difficult to know what the role actually is or the moment when a particular gene is triggered into disastrous action. There are long periods when Eva is serene-over-controlled, the pressure building up silently and secretly. They are periods of peace and beauty. But she is always poised for flight, as she was as a child. And if she escapes, I know she will be destroyed and I fear I will be destroyed along with her. If I were an honest man I would have counseled you to leave the first night I talked to you. Eva is again on the verge of madness. Verge is the wrong word. She slips across the border, slips back. I use what measures I can to hold her. Psychiatrists, clinics that are too expensive to be called by their correct name-asylums. You are this year's measure, my poor friend. I am selfish. I should tell you to get into your car, which is neatly packed and standing outside the door, and drive off once and for all. But I will not. Perhaps you cannot save her, but I feel you are saving me. I did not summon you here, I cannot blame myself for that. But, providentially, you came. And for your own reasons, again providentially, you have elected to stay. So be it." He put down his glass on the backgammon board with a sharp, decisive click and stood up. "I would be most grateful if next week, when I will have to go to the hospital in New York, you would be good enough to drive me down."

"Of course," Michael said, standing.