“[I began] thinking of the NORMANDIE again. It was not unusual before the war, even before the last war, for passengers to develop a special fondness for a particular ship. I’d had a friend with whom I’d graduated from Harvard who would cross only on the AQUITANIA in the same cabin with the same steward. His attachment to the ship went back to his childhood, and he and his wife had crossed on their wedding trip in the same cabin in which each of his children subsequently sailed to Europe. I’d also had an aunt who had a greater affection for the MAURETANIA than for any living being. She’d died two months after they’d scuttled the ship in ‘35. Perhaps I took after Aunt Lavinia, though no one in the family would ever admit as much. They excused her individuality as eccentricity, they condemned mine as immorality, but that night as I hurried back to my apartment I understood the way she must have felt when she learned of the ship’s demise. I knew that one of the last things of beauty and excellence in my world was being consumed by this insane war.”