“Best thing in the world for you. I know. I did it just before my bar exam. Went up and sailed and just relaxed. It’s the best thing in the world. You know, by now, that after all the years you’ve put into your work it’s not just a matter of three or four days at the end that’s going to make the difference.”

“I guess you’re right. You know, I reread the Comedy again thoroughly. You remember on our trip when we were talking about Dante and I said Hell is what a person does to himself when he goes against the grain of his own character? That’s what it really is and that’s what I went through, my own Hell, when I made my bad choices.”

“And now you’ve finished your punishment?”

“Oh, Jason, don’t ever think of Dante on the level of ‘punishment’! The Comedy doesn’t operate at the level of dogma, but at the highest human level—at the level of choice. That’s why it is universal, why it will always be relevant.”

A kind of excitement came into her voice as she spoke, an eagerness that touched Jason because he recognized in it the same commitment he gave to his work; the same kind of professionalism he felt.

“You were right, Tina,” he said, “to wait to finish your studies. It wasn’t fair of me to assume that you should give up what you wanted to do—and have to do—just because I was in law.”

“Oh, Jason, if you understand that, you understand everything!”

“ ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments,’ ” he recited.

“ ‘Love is not love/Which alters when it alternation finds,’ ” she finished.

They kissed again, nipping and gliding over each other’s lips, his hand ranging over her breasts, her arms around his neck to bring him closer to her. Then, drawing back, she braced her hands against his arms so that she could see his face.

“Jason,” she said. “Will I ever love you as much as at this moment?”

“Yes,” he answered, looking into her eyes and drawing her close again, “more and more, better and better. We’re going to be married.”

45. Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-five

Jason’s grandparents’ place at the Cape was a shuttered frame house at the end of a road. Tina loved what lay all around the dignified white house: the old red barn in the rear with its piles of sweet-smelling hay, the hilly meadowlands, the encroaching brush and forest growth, the tangle of wild sweet-peas and grapes, the marshlands, and then in the distance, the sea-cliffs and dunes.