Read "Hudson River Bracketed" by Edith Wharton online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Vance stood in the street and looked up into the night sky. The star-strewn darkness, though blotched with the city's profaning flare, recalled that other sky he had looked up at from the beach, when he had crept out at dawn from his wife's side.
The sea--he had never seen it since! Could he get to it now? he wondered. Its infinite tides seemed to be breaking over him; its sound was in his breast. The craving to stand on that beach swept over him again, vehement, uncontrollable, surging up from the depths which held the source of things. He stood staring at his vision till it mastered him. He must see the sea again, must see it this very night. One in the morning. a March morning. But he must get there somehow; get there before dawn, waylay the miracle. .