Analytical reading-Part 14

From The Seaside Houses

John Cheever

E

ach year, we rent a house at the edge of the sea and drive there in the first of the summer—with the dog and cat, the children and the cook—arriving at a strange place a little before dark. The journey to the sea had its ceremonious excitements, it has gone on for so many years now, and there is the sense that we are, as in our dreams we have always known ourselves to be, migrants and wanderers—travellers at least, with a traveller’s acuteness of feeling. I never investigate the houses we rent, and so the wooden castle with a tower, the pile, the Straffordshire cottage covered with roses, and the Southern mansion all loom up in the last of the sea light with the enormous appeal of the unknown. You unfasten the lock and step into a dark or light hallway, about to begin a vacation—a month that promises to have no worries of any kind. But as strong as or stronger than this pleasant sense of beginnings is the sense of having stepped into the midst of someone else’s life. All my dealings are with agents, and I have never known the people from whom we have rented, but their ability to leave behind them a sense of physical and emotional presences is amazing. Our affairs are certainly not written in air and water, but they do seem to be chronicled in scuffed baseboards, odours and tastes in furniture and paintings, and the climates we step into in these rented places are as marked as the changes of weather on the beach. Sometimes there is in the long hallway a purity and clearness of feeling to which we all respond. Someone was enormously happy here and we rent their happiness as we rent their beach and their boat. Sometimes the climate of the place seems mysterious, and remains a mystery until we leave in August.

Notes and comments:

at the edge of the sea-на брега на морето

in the heat of the summer-в разгара на лятото

wanderer-syn. migrant, traveller, nomad, rover, ranger, rambler, straggler, stroller, rolling stone, drifter, vagrant, tramp, hiker, trekker, tourist, holiday-maker

to loom-показвам се постепенно

to loom dark (against)-чернея се

to loom large-задавам се, изправям се, издигам се със застрашителни размери (може и с up), изпълвам ума, прен. приемам застрашителни размери

The dark outline of another ship loomed (up) through the fog.

The threat of the A-bomb loomed large in their minds.

аppeal—притегателна сила, привлекателност

His novels appeal to the readers.—Неговите романи се харесват на читателите.

A life of seclusion did not appeal to him.—Усамотеният живот не го привличаше (блазнеше).

scuffed baseboards—издраскано дюшеме (от тътрене на столове, мебели и пр.)