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Scuppernongs Dusk in Monticello’s autumn arbor— the squire reaches into wasp-haunted leaves to touch a single native grape more treasured than Muscat blanc, catawba, or lacrimi dolci. Seizing the evening, he strolls the slate maze and terrace alone to remember his late wife and lament the decade he’s struggled in vain to mate the Old World delicates to Vitus vulpina, the fragrant grape Aesop’s fox would have said anything just to taste. “The homely scuppernong,” he thinks,“is dusky, Southern, its ruminant juices rife with a sweetness indigenous to any Edenic muscadine tribe, yet immune to local perils like the aphid, black rot, powdery mildew, fretters.” He moves through spider floss and spike dandelions. “Unrefined,” he judges,“but with vigor,” and yearns to wed the spirits of a neighbor’s low-brow tendrils to the courtesies of Europe—nuance, dry insinuation, a widower’s oblique ardor. Ruminant 25 1SMITH_pages.qxd 8/13/07 10:44 AM Page 25 himself, graying russet, Jefferson maintains a sovereign’s posture and is stepping in dew now through the garden pavilion to spy the Marseilles fig espaliered, limbs twisted, crucified. A spilling fountain silvers. Late birds trill. Sunset is polished with jeweler’s rouge, a French touch. The wind stiffens his shoulders as the planter turns back to the wicker gate, threshold, the hearth, and flame, the thought of a mulled aperitif, the violin waiting by the lampstand, and then his threadbare mourning shawl already warmed by Sally’s serving hands. 26 1SMITH_pages.qxd 8/13/07 10:44 AM Page 26 ...

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