Free A Dove of the East by Mark Helprin Page A

that if she returned she would meet him at the Jeu de Paume at five o’clock on October 27, the day after her ticket expired.
    It was already five-thirty. He could smell roasting chestnuts. He was in his light gray and blue suit, and he carried the leather briefcase under his arm. It was filled with musical manuscripts he had written since his return from Greece. He was steady, slept soundly, spoke softly, and smiled more. He was older, and felt like his father, enjoying little things. His desk looked more chestnut-colored, and the bright lights of autumn were sharper than they had ever been. He knew now who was good, and he knew he was good. Massive clouds made the dark come early. Cold lightnings could be seen far north of Paris. High in the air birds rode thermals, tiny white flecks against the gray clouds. He loved the cool air, and looked up and down the paths, but they were emptying and the leaves just rustled on the floor of the Tuileries as if they were a German forest. That night he would sit under his lamp and pen the blinding white sheets; every day he felt himself rising a little higher, quietly, powerfully He jumped off the railing and walked toward the Champs Elysees. He was due at dinner with a friend whose sister was to be there. He was in the Ministry of Finance and she was a model who had appeared on the covers of
Match, Jours de France,
and
Elle.
One evening Harry had been in a restaurant alone and had stared at her picture, feeling himself fall into a trance somehow allied to the sweet darkness outside. My God, he said, as his heart opened to her image. The serenity was numbing. He found himself walking with quick step as a winter wind came down the Champs Elysees.
    He passed a tall girl with a beret. That bittersweet frame and the cold rushing air, the leaves like percussion, made him shudder. His friend's sister had deep blue eyes and on the cover of
Elle
she had been wearing a blue velvet gown. He knew he would be loving her soon, in the quiet of autumn, smooth, silent, and blue.

MOUNTAIN DANCING IN TRUCHAS
    A FASHION in New Mexico was mountain dancing, which was called that because it started in small villages in the North up high in the mountains. Rarely were there clouds in Truchas. Farther on toward Truchas Peak were thick forests with clear steady streams. Perpetually terrified of bears, cattle roamed the mountains, meek beasts who looked with fear even at one another and at birds, and who at the slightest noise would crash through the thick brush and run until they dropped—because like young children in the dark they feared their own sounds.
    Mountain dancing was not a
form
of dancing but rather just dancing on a Friday night. Couples would come, and if not couples then people alone. And they often brought their children. Josie brought her children because they were little enough to fear the moon and the night silence over the desolate black and white hillsides. They played in the corner with several other little children, some of whom were in bathrobes. All moved much faster because of the music, although they did not themselves know it.
    Josie was tall and brown. Around her wrists were bracelets of dull silver studded with blue stones. This work of the Southwest was nothing when compared to her eyes; her eyes, black and Persian against the red clay and outstanding clear green of the trees. When she held her hand, fingers spread, over her breast so that the tips of her nails reached nearly to her neck, it was possible to see her eyes reflected in her bracelets, and the silver and turquoise were also to be seen in the wet blue-black of her eyes, although not as well.
    She danced the best of all the women in Truchas, and better than the unattached girls. Dancing was a matter of pride and slow movements, of watching a wall or window while in the mind there was soaring and flying over silver mountain ranges, standing up rigid with the wind and rain rushing by as if around an upright Christ.