The Stories of John Cheever

Now he did what his father had done—unlaced his shoes, tore at the buttons of his shirt, and knowing that a mossy stone or the force of the water could be the end of him he stepped naked into the torrent, bellowing like his father. He could stand the cold for only a minute but when he stepped away from the water he seemed at last to be himself. He went on down to the main road, where he was picked up by some mounted police, since Maria had sounded the alarm and the whole province was looking for the maestro. His return to Monte Carbone was triumphant and in the morning he began a long poem on the inalienable dignity of light and air that, while it would not get him the Nobel Prize, would grace the last months of his life. ANOTHER STORY

Paint me a wall in Verona, then, a fresco above a door. There is a flowery field in the foreground, some yellow houses or palaces, and in the distance the towers of the city. A messenger in a crimson mantle is running down some stairs on the right. Through an open door one sees an old woman lying in bed. The bed is surrounded by court attendants. Higher up the stairs two men are dueling. In the center of the field, a princess is crowning a saint or a hero with flowers. A circle of hunting dogs and other animals, including a lion, is watching the ceremony with reverence. On the far left there is a stretch of green water on which a fleet of sailing ships—five—is heading for port. High against the sky two men in court dress hang from a gibbet. My friend was a prince and Verona his home, but commuting trains, white houses planted with yews, the streets and offices of New York were his landscape, and he wore a green plush hat and a shabby, tightly belted raincoat with a cigarette burn on the sleeve.