license I didn't have. Tish decided he'd make a run for it, leaving me to cope with the arresting officers.

We drove to a secret place on the river and it began to rain, slowly. There were quilts in the back. We found a bottle in the glove compartment, half full of apricot brandy. After awhile we took off our clothes and got into the back seat and covered ourselves with the quilts, feeling each other's warmth and sipping the brandy. The smell of the rain and the river entered the car and settled about us. Light-headed, I laid my head on his chest and let my hands run over his body, trembling at the touch of his warm smoothness. There, surrounded by the rain and the river and the darkened sky we came to each other in that mutually respectful, deeply gratifying sexual embrace of adolescence.

Eventually spring came again, and the orange trees bloomed once more. The days became unreal in their perfection. The air and the sun and the smell made us feel like movie actors, playing a role. We wrestled on new-cut grass, staining our knees green.

"I'm going to the river to swim. Wanna come," Tish asked one afternoon. "It's too cold yet. That water's melted snow from the mountains." "Chicken. Sissy."

"It's too damn cold."

"Okay then, I'm going. I'll see ya tonight."

"Okay."

After he left I began to wish I had gone with him. It seemed unnatural for us to not be swimming together. I tried not to think about him, but it was impossible. We would go to the show after supper. A science-fiction movie was playing. Maybe we could camp out later.

My father got up from the supper table to answer the phone. He came back and didn't sit down.

"That was Harry," he said, slowly. "Tish drowned in the river."

And my childhood was over.

Now, years later, I am back. I stand at a grave not quite six feet long, and tears run down my cheeks. I cry for Tish for the dark beauty of him. For the young soul of him. I cry for the memory of my youth. For the guileless security of innocence. Was I really ever that happy? Did those blossoms really smell so sweet? Was the tender awe of first love so overpowering?

"A boy's will is the wind's will. . . .

My tears are for beauty and not for pain. The pain has gone. My crying is for the memory of something that existed long ago. The tears that come to all of us when we remember a beauty that was ours in another time. Tears for lost youth and the memory of orange blossoms and liquid nights and rainy afternoons. Sobering tears, but not despairing.

ARCADIE

Monthly magazine in French; literary and scientific, infrequent photos and drawings. $9. yearly. 74 Boulevard de Reuilly, Paris, XII, France

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