And it was splendid after dinner to sit on the darkening veranda among quiet voices and the sound of creaking wicker. She looked at the sky above hills slowly draining of color. The darkening blue of the east turned to pale, pale blue above, to a blue that was almost white but gave off no light, like a darkness. It was growing cool. “Cheesecloth,” a man’s voice said decisively, and she tried to hear the next sentence, but his words were interwoven with sounds of footsteps, creaking furniture, a pipe knocking against a glass ashtray. “It’s getting a little chilly,” a woman said to her husband. A few older men lit up cigars. “I think I’ll go in and get my sweater,” someone said. “It’s this mountain air,” someone else said. And all at once, for no reason, the missing letters came to her: arête. The side door opened and closed, someone yawned loudly, people walked on the gravel paths lit by carriage lamps. The veranda smelled of lake water, cigar smoke, and damp wood. It was growing dark.

Someone cried out, then there were gasps and shouts: and the moon, large and fiery orange, rose slowly from the black hills. It was nearly round, except that one side was slightly blurred, as if someone had started to erase it before giving up.

Judith could almost hear the machinery hidden behind the hills, creakily hoisting the cumbrous old moon, which in a moment would probably tumble back down with a crash. But it detached itself from the hill and sat there, looking pleased with itself.

She decided to take a little walk in the lamplit dark before going inside. On the gravel paths by the side of the lake, couples strolled slowly, stopping now and then to look at the water. Judith walked along a path to the other side of the lake and began climbing the dark hill. She had hoped to sit in one of the gazebos on the cliffs along the way, but in each one she passed there sat a couple looking out across the lake. On a stretch of bare flat moon-brightened cliffs, a little distance from the paths, lovers sat and lay as if they were on a beach. Some had brought blankets and lay on their backs, staring up at the night sky. And an irritation came over Judith, at this invasion, this conspiracy of lovers to occupy the best places. The moon had climbed and was pale yellow now. Judith continued up the steep trail, hoping to exhaust the lovers. When she came to the next gazebo she saw a heavy man smoking a pipe, alone. She turned back down the path.