When is night coldest and darkest? Logic tells us, midway between sunset and sunrise. Poetry tells us, just before the dawn. Experience has no opinion. The bulb-bewitched insects have given up killing themselves for the night. Nothing stirs but the irregular wind and the unseen ocean hissing and slapping its coils. The ocean, drowned in darkness on the far side of the street, sounds louder and seems nearer for being invisible. It is this amplification that at last detaches Anne’s helplessness from herself. Empathetic speculation does not accumulate gradually. It electrifies with revelation.
