But that wouldn’t be silence, then, not really, Rosie thought in all fairness. The front door opened, and closed with a tight thud. “Well, darling,” said Rosie.

“Sitting here. Thinking what?”

“How do you know I was thinking?”

“Just a clever guess.”

“It was about the sack of silence.”

“Sack in what sense?”

“Sense of ransack. Plunder. I read it in a poem. How our generation

watched with mixed feelings

the sack of Silence, the churches empty, the cavalry go.

The cavalry’s rather stretching it, all the same.”

“I do remember horses, though, in towns.”

“Well, so do I. Pulling drays. Clydesdales with huge furry feet. Always in pairs. The horses, I mean. What good times we had before the Industrial Revolution.” Rosie leaned back, her hands clasped round her knees. “Where’s Teddy?”

“With the Dunstans’ boy. Playing Blast-Off.”

“Listen, you heard about these nails.”

“Not only. I was roped in. Have to hammer some right away so we can hold up our civic heads.”

“They’re from Peru.”

“There must be mines, then, in that part of Illinois. Wasn’t that where the Lead Rush was?”

“Lead Rush? As if a gold rush isn’t ignominious enough.”

A man’s voice cried out, “Inner peace, inner peace—” It roared up at them, frantic. “No other way—”

“Bishop Sheen’s got turned on.”

“I said she could, she asked me as I came in.”

“Inner peace—”

“I’m afraid it’ll frighten Teddy.”

“Not after Blast-Off. Nothing could.”

“I heard the cardinal this morning. He was in the lilacs.”

“Frightened out by the nails.”

They were silent. Rosie said, “Where have we been silent?”

“Not here.” He raised his voice to be heard above the noise from below. “Not much in town, either.”

“Where, then?”

“Segesta, Olympia…”

“Bassae, Volubilis, Tarquinia.” Rosie on her wedding trip had made the circle of the Mediterranean. “Ruins mostly. Places where the noise has had time to die down. The tumult and the shouting dies; if you live long enough. Woods at the foot of Stratton Mountain.”

“That’s not ruins. Not Vermont.”

“No, but there was so much snow. Snow gives a sort of age. Silence is white.”

“Silence is golden.”

“There are leaden silences too.”

He stood up. “On to Peru.”

“I actually heard the silence once. One night, in a garden.”

“How was it?”

“Earsplitting.” Rosie stretched out, her arms behind her head. “Do I give them tea when they reach this end of the green?”

“Lord, must you?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“Play it by ear. I’d lie doggo if I were you.”