Explore "The Swing of the Pendulum" by Adriana Spadoni on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In March, before the actual building of the tenements began, Jean and Gregory went away for a week-end. They had decided on the spur of the moment and taken the train like two truant children. Their plan was to get off wherever it looked attractive and stop at the first farmhouse that would take them in.
The train was a popular express and crowded, so they had to stand until the first stop was reached. Then Jean got a seat and Gregory went into the smoker. With her elbow on the windowsill and her chin in her hand, Jean gazed into the fleeing fields and was glad that Gregory was not there. It was almost too much, the deep hollows still snow-filled, the bare earth of the upper stretches, the faint green of swelling buds, and the two days before them. No duties to intervene, no appointments to keep. It was their first interlude of almost perfect freedom. But there were going to be many more in the summer ahead.