Fly-Fishing the 41st Read Online Free PDF

building, and was in a kind of attic or aerie—there was a kitchen, bathroom, and a room with a bed, a couch, and two desks. The room’s untidy appearance did not distract me from seeing its crowning virtue, a view of the large rose window of a gorgeous church, gigantic as the moon appears when it is near the horizon. The church’s name was Saint-Ouen and it seemed so close you could put your hand through the rose window as though it were a pool of water.
    â€œI couldn’t live without this view.” Yannid nonchalantly opened the windows. “I couldn’t study without it. I mean that, it’s my sanity.”
    I looked out over the sun-drenched slate-colored rooftops to the church and its rose window that was mesmerizing me. Now with the light fading behind passing clouds it looked more like a purple pool of water, almost, with fishes leaping out of it. “I can’t wait toget out of here. Put your stuff down,” she demanded, “and let’s go to the beach. I love the water.”
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    â€œYou won’t believe how beautiful Normandy is in spring,” said Yannid as we drove up the hills outside Rouen. “Now I think it looks like Connecticut in December. It seldom snows here, though.” In the leafless treetops were balls of green foliage, an evergreen called gui, or mistletoe. “My father used to say, under every Yankee’s skin there’s a Norman. I think he meant that to mean that my mother is cheap. The irony is that he’s the tight one.”
    Yannid and I had lunch at a restaurant by the sea. She had a militant and proprietary way of ordering food, insisting that I get the fish that was in season. So I had steamed mussels and a bland fish soup and was happy to be spoken for. We had a little white wine too, which was good for making conversation and warming the fingertips, and after lunch we walked barefoot on the beach. In the distance was a train of horses and riders, trotting along the edge of a light surf.
    We crossed little streams of salt water, which rushed and coursed through the sand, and Yannid told me that the French word for channel or rivulet, rigole, came from the verb rigoler, “to laugh.” “It’s a nice way to describe the sound of water, isn’t it?” she said.
    â€œI like being with you,” I said to her. “Maybe I can take you to fish for trout. Maybe you could come with me.”
    â€œI’d love to, James,” she said, “only, close by. As much as I’d like to, I can’t travel the world with you, I’m a medical student.”
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    Later that afternoon we sat drinking local cider in a dark pub in a small harbor town lined with sailboats. The aroma of apples brought me home, as did the smells of wood burning in a fireplace. On the way back to Rouen we stopped at a wine shop and Yannid bought two bottles of smoky cider and some apple brandy. It was just nice to be with her, to drink and be lost in a place I didn’t really know. I wanted to go where the going took me.
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    When we returned to Rouen in the evening we stopped at the apartment where Yannid’s mother lived in order to drop off the keys to the car. “Mom’s undressed for the night and won’t be seen,” Yannid said, “but come inside because I want to show you something.”
    It was a two-floor apartment furnished with beautiful hardwood chairs, chests, and tables. Yannid led me to a window beyond a tall armoire. “It has the best view of the cathedral of any apartment in Rouen,” Yannid explained, pulling back the blinds to show me.
    â€œThis is the cathedral Monet painted in all its changing moods as storm and sunlight swept through town. It’s stunning, isn’t it? And yet I don’t really like Rouen anymore.” The cathedral was lit mysteriously by floodlights from the ground and behind it was a dark purple sky. Yannid turned from the cathedral to look at