Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'engle

Author:Madeleine L'engle
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2012-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

High lifts my heart in warmth and cold,

Moonlight and starlight, cloud and sun,

Sea spray and salt and the land’s fold,

Lamb and fledgling, and love begun

In the heart that dares not warm

But cannot chill. Stars! Stay my heart

And keep my borning love from harm,

For love will start, oh, love will start.

When we got back to the Argosy, there was a big tub of water and a brush with a long handle at the top of the metal steps, and we were to step in the water with our boots on to wash the guano off. We certainly didn’t want to bring that smell onto the ship. I cleaned my boots, went to my cabin, and took off all my heavy outdoor garments, and then the bell rang for lunch and I was starved.

The lunch line on the Argosy reminded me of the lunch line in the cafeteria at school. Jorge and Otto stood near Cook and me, and Jack Nessinger joined us, and Otto left the smokers’ side to sit with us at lunch. Jorge and Jack questioned him about Zlatovica, and remarked on how it’s not much bigger than Rhode Island.

After lunch, there was a German-language lecture. German seemed to be the common language of the European contingent, though I heard some French, and there were some other languages I couldn’t identify. During the lecture the rest of us were given a tour of the ship; the others would be given the tour later. We went to the engine rooms, to the kitchen, where a very young chef in a high white hat was baking vast quantities of wonderful-smelling bread; we went up to the bridge with all its instruments, and I looked through the depth sounder and the captain pointed out his new sonar and some other instruments I knew John and Adam would understand but which were too technical for me. We were shown the captain’s quarters. The cabin with his bunk was even smaller than our cabins, but he had a large cabin for a living room, where sometimes he entertained dignitaries. There were two wide and long bunks which were piled with pillows to make them couches. There was a round table in the center of the room with a beautiful, hammered-copper top, and a couple of heavy, comfortable chairs.

After the tour I went down to my cabin and described what I had seen, and then copied out the poem in my journal and caught up on the letter I was writing to Aunt Serena. Maybe I’d copy the poem for her, too, when I’d worked on it a little more.

“You didn’t prepare me for the guano smell,” I told her. “It’s a smell, not a stink, because it isn’t decaying or putrid, but you certainly don’t want to bottle it and bring it home.

“There are some interesting people on the Argosy. Cook and I usually sit with Sam and Siri, but we’ve also got to know Leilia, a teacher from Alaska, and I’d really like to be in her classroom.

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