NORMAN MAILER
609
I spent a difficult two hours after my arrival. Neither Hugh Mon–
tague nor his fiancee were there - instead, I was received by the eminent
Shakespearean and his wife, Maisie. They endured me; I suffered. He was
a Harvard professor of a variety that may no longer exist. Dr. Gardiner
was so well established that there were tiers to his eminence. Stages of his
personality, much like assistants in a descending chain of command, were
delegated to conversation. We spoke of the Yale and Harvard .football
teams of the previous fall, then of my category in squash - I was a B–
group player - and of my father, whom Dr. Gardiner had last seen with
Mr. Dulles at an annual garden party in Washington: "He looked very
well indeed - of course, that was last year."
"Yessir. He still looks well."
"Good for him."
As a tennis player, Dr. Gardiner would not have let you enjoy ral–
lies during the warm-up. He'd drive your innocent return cross-court and
leave you to trot after it.
Maisie was not conspicuously better. She spoke of the flower
gar–
den she would put in this May; she intoned in a dreary if nonetheless
dulcet voice against the unpredictability of spring weather in Maine. She
mentioned the hybrids she would plant; when I offered mention of some
wildflowers to look for in June and July, she lost much interest in me.
Conversational pauses expanded into an extension of silence. In despera–
tion, I tried to charge into Dr. Gardiner's center of strength. I expati–
ated on a term paper (for which I had received an A) on Ernest Hem–
ingway's work since
Green Hills
of
Africa .
The consciously chosen irony
of the later style showed, I said, that he had been enormously influenced
by
King Lear,
particularly by some of Kent's lines, and I quoted from act
one, scene four, "I do prefer ... to love him that is loved, to converse
with him that is wise and say little, to fear judgment, to fight when I
cannot choose, and to eat no fish." I was about to add, "I can keep
honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a
plain message bluntly," but Dr. Gardiner said, "Why concern yourself
with the copyist?"
We sat in silence. After a stretch, Kittredge and Hugh Montague
came back in the twilight. They had been - it was a very cold Easter -
ice climbing on parts of the lower trail of Gorham Mountain. Nice stuff,
Kittredge assured me, and she looked
full
of red cheeks and Christmas.
She was lovely beyond any measure I had for a woman. Her dark
hair was cut short like a boy's, and she was wearing pants and a wind–
breaker, but she was the most wonderful looking girl. She could have
been a heroine out of her father's collection of painted Victorian
damsels, pale as their cloisters, lovely as angels. That was Kittredge - ex–
cept that her color today after the afternoon's ice climb was as startling
