The teachers and the Irish couple eavesdrop—one never learns so much as from another person’s guide. The Norwegian girl stands up at last and leans on the rail, but the other travelers are losing interest in her: she is all very well, but they have come here for the real thing—art, history, truth—and cannot afford to be sidetracked.

The boy is first down from the deck. He squeezes among the cars, the girl following, and reaches the bicycles just as the boat touches the pier. They have disposed of their paper bag and have nothing to repack. They wheel their bicycles forward a yard or two, exchange a few words. The girl lifts her head to look at Patras and laughs.

There is something drastic about the arrival of a ship against a dock—even if it is simply the ferry from Itea against the pier at Patras—some sensation of adventure, almost of rescue. A definable episode is completed, a less definable one begins. Chains are rattling, ropes creak around bollards, and there are the ritual shouts of “Oi! Oi!” that presumably give guidance to those concerned. By the time the flap of the ferry is let down, all the passengers are on the lower deck—those on foot preparing to walk to their destination in the town, those with cars repacking their belongings. The cars are too hot to enter, and their owners stand beside them in the sun.

The cyclists are first off. The other tourists must wait—for one of the wool trucks is to be allowed off before the cars—and they watch the two figures weaving up the short rise that leads from the pier to the main road. At last it seems possible to talk about them.

The Danish lady laughs, brushing the tough spines of the thyme from her white jacket. “But such discomfort! Such discomfort! At my age—unthinkable…” She pauses, but her husband doesn’t smile or reassure her. It is not the moment for jokes about age.

He says, “We will overtake them in no time.”

The stocky teacher has put on her sunglasses. “They took so little interest. One can’t imagine why they come to Greece.”

Her friend’s imagination may be less deficient, for she looks vague. She says, “I expect we’ll bump into them in Arcadia.”

The Irish couple slide into the scorching seats of their car. “This bloody wool,” he says.

Still looking at the road, his wife asks him, “But what will they eat?”

“Tomatoes.”

“Where will they sleep?”

“Together.”

“One could give them a lift perhaps?”

“With those bicycles?” he begins in halfhearted horror, but then says, “No. No. Let them alone.” A signal is made for the cars to move on, and he starts the engine. “They’re having the time of their lives.”

THE EVERLASTING DELIGHT