ONE<br >The prospect of taking a restorative bath， dressing in the candy-<br >striped flannel nightgown which so reminded her of childhood，<br >and sinking into immediate sleep---badly needed sleep at that--<br >was not attractive. For one thing， it was only early evening in<br >New York， and she would surely waken sometime after mid-<br >night with the unappetizing small hours of the night to be tra-<br >versed. It would be t6o late to call friends， and she had nothing<br >to read. She had read and reread the many books in the second<br >bedroom， which had ~een turned into a study， and she knew<br >from experience that fresh reading material was needed to com-<br >bat jet lag.<br > Scooping the contents of her suitcase onto her living room<br >floor， Sarah began to sort the garments into piles for the laundry<br >hamper and piles for the cleaner. The apartment building<br >seemed unnaturally quiet， but street noises insinuated their way<br >up to her seventh-floor fastness with an irritating regularity she<br >had almost forgotten. The blasting sirens and whooping， self-<br >important bleats of ambulettes were a constant， of course， but<br >for the first time she noticed the frequency with which automo-<br >bile burglar alarms made their bid to join the little symphony.<br >When had they become so ubiquitous?<br > Well， you experienced a trade-off when a neighborhood be-<br >came gentrified. Instead of the jolly shrieks and murderous<br >howls which had once floated up from the welfare hotels at<br >either end of Sarah s block， she was now treated to the screams<br >of glee of well-fed young people who poured from the doors of<br >sushi parlors on nearby Columbus Avenue. The bracing sounds<br >of a shattering pint of Thunderbird had been replaced， in warm<br >weather， by the cacophony of street musicians. There were<br >brass bands and string quartets， mimes and fire-eaters， tap danc-<br ><br >