21 MAY 1994, Page 32

Cousin

after Gerard de Nerval

Winter has its pleasures, e.g. Sunday. Earth is blanched and gentled by low sun and you can step out smartly with the one-day- a-week girl cousin . . . phenomenon not to be missed. — Nor dinner, Mother says.

So: park, beflowered frocks, dark ash trees — when seeing as how the mist begins to rise she's cold! — and turns our bowsprit home again just when the ice. . . And yet the day was good, the walk was good. We say so, several times as, ravenous now, we steer home for good food, wine, napery . . . those other Sunday chimes.

William Scammell