Old Summer Friends

Weathering a heat wave with Chaucer and Dante

Boston recently experienced a genuine heat wave, an entire little string of unbroken heat cooking every day and only barely relenting every night, turning the daytime air to hammered brass, making the sidewalks sizzle and the street-ends ripple in the humidity. The cranky old AC unit I’d providentially installed in the one window of my little book room had settled into a low resentful hum, grudgingly but very neatly cooling off the room and turning it into a sanctuary.