CHAPTER 2
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LUCIA:
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THE GRAND TOUR—A SEASON in Europe—had not been my idea.
It was not that I had ample reasons to be so satisfied with my life that the prospect of a Grand Tour holiday would prove to be an abhorrent punishment. It was not that I was so parochially-minded as to be disdainful of travel, or so well-traveled at that, as to be suffering from ennui at the mere thought of further motion. It was simply...unexpected.
What I had been expecting was a quiet summer to approach, perhaps my last, spent, as was the family custom, at Ithaca, the old St. Clair home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on Lake Mahkeenac, set amongst the Berkshire Mountains. The airy flirtations and frivolities of the New York marriage circuit with their weighty ramifications had wearied me an
