All his life Jon has had a curious horror of small towns: not suburbs; they are quite a different matter – but the little cities of New Hampshire and Georgia and Kansas, and upper New York. He was born in New York City, and even as a little boy he never had any fear of the streets or strange foreign faces – but on the occasions when he has been in the sort of place he is referring to, he has been oppressed with the consciousness that there was a whole hidden life, a whole series of secret implications, significances and terrors, just below the surface, of which he knew nothing. In the cities everything good or bad eventually comes out, comes out of people’s hearts. Life moves about, moves on, and vanishes. In the small towns – those of between five and twenty-five thousand people – old hatreds, old and unforgotten affairs, ghostly scandals and tragedies, seem unable to die, but live on all tangled up with the natural ebb and flow of outward life.

Once upon a time Jon was sent to the South to his aunt Samantha. It was a small town and he didn’t want to go there. He planned to spend his summer vacation in Europe tour, but his father was very instant and he had no choice. In that town he had the feeling that he can no longer communicate with the people around him. The men and the girls speak a language wherein courtesy is combined with violence and fanatic morality with corn-drinking recklessness. But to his luck there was a girl with whom Jon spoke the same language, the language of love. They even didn’t need words. Their minds were attuned. Her name was Margo. She wasn’t a citizen of that place she came to visit her relatives too. Margo and Jon were twin souls. It was a love from the first sight. They both were from New York City. They were extroverted and happy persons. They were young and enjoyed their life as much as they can. They both like music with rhythm and have fun at parties. So, after meeting Margo he even was glad that came there.