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wide. He stepped out. Into space? Into the inky tides of meteor and gaseous torch? Into swift mileages and infinite dimensions?
    No. Bodoni smiled.
    All about the quivering rocket lay the junkyard.
    Rusting, unchanged, there stood the padlocked junkyard gate, the little silent house by the river, the kitchen window lighted, and the river going down to the same sea. And in the center of the junkyard, manufacturing a magic dream, lay the quivering, purring rocket. Shaking and roaring, bouncing the netted children like flies in a web.
    Maria stood in the kitchen window.
    He waved to her and smiled.
    He could not see if she waved or not. A small wave, perhaps. A small smile.
    The sun was rising.
    Bodoni withdrew hastily into the rocket. Silence. All still slept. He breathed easily. Tying himself into a hammock, he closed his eyes. To himself he prayed, Oh, let nothing happen to the illusion in the next six days. Let all of space come and go, and red Mars come up under our ship, and the moons of Mars, and let there be no flaws in the color film. Let there be three dimensions; let nothing go wrong with the hidden mirrors and screens that mold the fine illusion. Let time pass without crisis.
    He awoke.
    Red Mars floated near the rocket.
    â€œPapa!” The children thrashed to be free.
    Bodoni looked and saw red Mars and it was good and there was no flaw in it and he was very happy.
    At sunset on the seventh day the rocket stopped shuddering.
    â€œWe are home,” said Bodoni.
    They walked across the junkyard from the open door of the rocket, their blood singing, their faces glowing. Perhaps they knew what he had done. Perhaps they guessed his wonderful magic trick. But if they knew, if they guessed, they never said. Now they only laughed and ran.
    â€œI have ham and eggs for all of you,” said Maria, at the kitchen door.
    â€œMama, Mama, you should have come, to see it, to see Mars, Mama, and meteors, and everything!”
    â€œYes,” she said.
    At bedtime the children gathered before Bodoni. “We want to thank you, Papa.”
    â€œIt was nothing.”
    â€œWe will remember it for always, Papa. We will never forget.”
    Very late in the night Bodoni opened his eyes. He sensed that his wife was lying beside him, watching him. She did not move for a very long time, and then suddenly she kissed his cheeks and his forehead. “What’s this?” he cried.
    â€œYou’re the best father in the world,” she whispered.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œNow I see,” she said. “I understand.”
    She lay back and closed her eyes, holding his hand. “Is it a very lovely journey?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œPerhaps,” she said, “perhaps, some night, you might take me on just a little trip, do you think?”
    â€œJust a little one, perhaps,” he said.
    â€œThank you,” she said. “Good night.”
    â€œGood night,” said Fiorello Bodoni.

SEASON OF DISBELIEF
    H OW IT BEGAN WITH THE CHILDREN , old Mrs. Bentley never knew. She often saw them, like moths and monkeys, at the grocer’s, among the cabbages and hung bananas, and she smiled at them and they smiled back. Mrs. Bentley watched them making footprints in winter snow, filling their lungs with autumn smoke, shaking down blizzards of spring apple-blossoms, but felt no fear of them. As for herself, her house was in extreme good order, everything set to its station, the floors briskly swept, the foods neatly tinned, the hatpins thrust through cushions, and the drawers of her bedroom bureaus crisply filled with the paraphernalia of years.
    Mrs. Bentley was a saver. She saved tickets, old theater programs, bits of lace, scarves, rail transfers; all the tags and tokens of existence.
    â€œI’ve a stack of records,” she often said. “Here’s Caruso. That was in 1916, in New York; I was sixty and John was still alive. Here’s June Moon, 1924, I think, right after