Both in style and substance, the finely balanced sensibility that characterizes Shirley Hazzard's New Yorker stories pervades The Evening of the Holiday…. Here, refracted as in a prism, is a moment in time—in the time of love, which is a rather different division of existence from that of calendar calculation. The setting is Italy, the season is summer, and the lovers are an Italian, Tancredi, separated from his wife, and a vacationing visitor, Sophie, half English, half Italian. They meet; they are mistrustfully drawn together; they love; they part. And the primary interest of this brief tale is the artistry with which the love affair is limned, from tentative attraction to prolonged celebration amidst the "dry gold" beauty of a countryside in full bloom; a holiday of the heart shadowed by the lovers' awareness of moving towards the evening of separation.

Miss Hazzard creates a cumulative mood...