He turned and began swimming–splashing desperately, rather–toward the beach, and suddenly he was praying to God to save him. He would be good in the future, would obey his parents, would not miss mass on Sunday. Then he remembered having confessed to the Sharpies, “I go to church only to see a young lady,” and he felt a knife-sharp conviction: God was going to punish him, to drown him in those turbid waters that he was frantically beating, waters below which an awful death, and afterward hell perhaps, were waiting for him.