A New Life Read Free Page B

little longer.”
    Levin glanced nervously at Gilley.
    “Stay a while, Sy.”
    “If you say,” he muttered. They were being polite out of embarrassment, he thought, and it annoyed him because he was worried about getting settled for the night.
    But he stayed.
     
    Erik wandered down the stairs and asked his father to go back up with him.
    “All right,” Gilley said to Levin. “And after that we’d better scoot over to Mrs. Beaty. Shell be wanting to get to bed.”
    “Agreed,” said Levin.
    Erik went to him and raised his arms.
    “He wants to be picked up,” Pauline said.
    Levin, after hesitating, picked up the child.
    Erik tugged at his beard. “Funny man.”
    “That’s enough of that,” said Pauline.
    Gilley took Erik from Levin and carried him upstairs.
    “There’s no telling what next,” she said.
    “I had no objection.”
    She was silent. He inspected the book shelves and drew out a book.
    She crocheted a while, then asked what he was looking at.
    “ The American, Henry James.”
    “Oh?” She got up, searched on the bottom book shelf, and came up with a reprint from an academic journal, which she handed Levin. Gilley’s name was on the cover of a short article on Howells.
    “He wrote it in graduate school,” she said. “He was a teaching
assistant and I was one of his students. Gerald was the only person of his year to have an article in PMLA , during his graduate career. I hoped he’d go on with scholarly papers but he says they’re a bore.”
    “Is that so?”
    She smiled almost sadly. “He’s done a few textbook reviews here and there, but not much else. Gerald is an active type, too much so to write with patience. And there’s no doubt he’s lost some of his interest in literature. Nature here can be such an esthetic satisfaction that one slights others.”
    Levin instinctively shrugged.
    “Life is so varied and what happens so often unexpected,” Pauline said with a glance at him. “There’s so much to do—to be done. I find myself—” She inspected the strip of lace she had crocheted, then went on, “If Gerald were among more people who were doing literary research and writing, I think he would too. Of course Dr. Fabrikant, in the department, is a scholar, but they don’t take to each other for too many reasons to go into, and Gerald feels anyway that at Cascadia College—the kind of place this is—the emphasis should be on teaching. He’s quite a popular lecturer.”
    “What kind of place–?”
    “—He does many things and gets a lot of pleasure out of his life. He fishes—this is the country for it if you’re interested; he’s a wonderful dry fly fisherman, and I’ve seen other fishermen stop what they were doing to watch him. He also hunts pheasants and ducks and loves to watch athletic events. I never thought I would myself, but you’d be surprised how exciting these games can get. We generally have very good football and basketball teams, though not as high-powered as those in California. And Gerald is also an excellent photographer. He’s very talented at candid shots and has won all sorts of prizes in almost every category. Last year one of his pictures won a first prize at the State Fair. Let me show it to you.”
    She slid open a door at the bottom of a bookcase and got out a thick picture album which she brought to the sofa.

    I’m in for it now, Levin thought.
    Pauline turned to an enlarged photograph of an old farmhouse that looked like an upended shoe box. “‘Pioneer Farmhouse,’” she read. “He’s done a series of these all over the state. We go camping in summertime—I hate it but it’s good for the kids—and he likes to hunt out these places and snap them. Gerald is in love with Americana. This is the sixth prize he’s won with this particular subject.”
    “Very nice—”
    She turned to the middle of the album. “Here he is with his sister when he was a boy in knickers in Abilene, South Dakota. Notice how alert he looks. Here’s