Sometime in the night he awoke. At once he was wide awake, and he was instantly aware that there would be little possibility of sleeping, now, for who knew how long? He was in for a spell of sleeplessness which would be profitless, possibly disturbing, and certainly damaging to his well-­being tomorrow. He blamed it on the nap of the afternoon.

Again he noticed that the shades had not been lifted. He got out of bed and raised them on the ocean side. He leaned on the window sill, his nose to the screen. There was no sound but the faint wash of the sea. Far along the beach to the left, over the dark bluffs, could be seen the intermittent sudden spark of Sankaty Light; it flashed red, then dim, then glaringly white like a diamond, as it revolved ceaselessly in the night. Foolish to maintain such a rigid blackout, he thought, yet allow the lighthouse to throw its beam farther out to sea than any bedroom lamp could hope to penetrate. Directly opposite was the beach where they had lain that morning in the sun: thinking of this, he could almost smell the sensual heavy odor of sun-­tan oil. He glanced toward the Coast Guard station near Tom Nevershead; it was dark there, but somewhere in that lonely reach of sand the coast guardsman and his dog kept their hourly patrol. He breathed the air. There was no fog. It promised well for the full moon due two nights later.

He wanted to read or perhaps write a letter, in an effort to make himself drowsy again. Unwilling to disturb Ethel’s sleep by using the bed light, he went to the dressing table. He sat down and flipped the switch of the lamp under the mirror. To his surprise it did not go on. Then he remembered. (“He’s always breaking things!”) He must get the lamp fixed or replaced in the morning, though possibly all it needed was a new bulb. He went back to his bed and lay a long while thinking over that day.