Chapter 23: XXIII

XXIII Washington Square lay in restful beauty beneath its glittering blanket of snow. Here and there were rounded mounds, hillocks of whiteness whose framework were iron benches that had held countless pairs of lovers in the gentle warmth of spring or the torrid breathlessness of summer. The commonplace, ugly fences had been transformed miraculously into graceful lines of ethereal, ghostlike, shimmering whiteness. The harsh lines of the Arch had been rounded and softened until it seemed like …