The thin man of indeterminate age who was inquiring his way near the campus carried a large notebook and several thick volumes. He held these close to his side under his right arm and leaned from his hips forward, his skinny neck thrust out from a loose collar.

“Might this be the residence of Dr. Freed?” He stood looking toward Margery who was down on her knees in a flower garden. “I see I’ve come to the wrong place.” He supplicated toward heaven with weary frustration and turned as if to go. It was the sunken lip which gave him the look of an old man. His upper teeth were missing and his words came out with a mushy sound; his nose, which bent down, came very close to meeting his lower lip.

Margery, in spite of misgivings, put down her garden shears and came to the gate. “May I help you?” She smiled and pushed back her hair with fingers still deep in pudgy garden gloves.

The young man—he now appeared to be a shattered thirty—raised his head. His eyes were clouded with glasses but behind their owl-dark rims she saw a gathering of weak tears.

“I’ll go away,” he said. “I’m very tired, I won’t bother you further.”

“You wished to see someone?” Her voice was gently helpful.

“I am a student of literature,” he said. “I have come a good distance to converse with Dr. Freed.”

“I’m afraid he isn’t home. Perhaps I can help you?” She was a kindly girl, impulsive, overly sympathetic. She held open the gate. “Come in and sit in the shade. If I can help you. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard of me,” said the young man, cocking his head on one side with a discreet sly smile. “Finebein. Harrison Finebein. I’m somewhat famous, that is I write. I’ve had many works published; I am, I can say, in my way well known, and that is why I wanted to talk to your husband. That is, you are, I take it, Mrs. Freed?”

Margery wanted to reply but the words were lost in his next question.

“You have perhaps children?”

“Two daughters,” said Margery, aware of the solid earth again; she adored her daughters. “Elizabeth, she’s the. . . .”

“Two lovely daughters,” went on the famous man, “a garden, many lovely flowers. Might I inquire if you planted these yourself? Of course, I’m a single man, myself,” he hastened to add. “I get by, with a little savings. It goes, but there is some talk of a grant. People are working on these angles.”

“I love to garden.” Margery automatically pulled off a dried flower from the marigolds which were splendid in the fall sunlight.

“And you write, too?” He leaned forward eagerly like a turtle coming out from between his collar plates and smiled again showing his bare upper gums with little ridges where the teeth had been. Again it was a knowing smile. Again he cocked his head slightly, his eyebrows lifted, acknowledging the secret profession. “You write, yourself?”

“Of course,” said Margery self-consciously, “I write.” She stood uncertainly looking down at him. He leaned back in the metal garden chair which he had taken quite easily, and crossed his knees. The chair, a tubular rocker, all of one piece, would dip and rise under pressure.

“Perhaps you teach, too?” He looked at her and bounced the chair gently. “You went to Harvard, too? I see by the catalogue that Dr. Freed went to Harvard.” He punctuated his remarks with nods. “You think this school is as good as Harvard? It-is, yes?”

“Well,” said Margery, “I would hesitate. . . .”

“It’s big,” he said, considering. “Big agriculture school, big engineering school. Now about my schooling.” His voice dropped; he took a pencil out of his coat pocket and tapped his notebook. “Educated in Europe,” he said, “left Europe, and went to England; there was some thought of sending me to Oxford, but that didn’t work out. My aunt has a millinery business in England, hats for the queen, but I didn’t work out in the business. I couldn’t work, I can’t work—” he shook his head, amused. “So—” and as he smiled once more, she observed the black stains on his lower teeth. Every tooth was coated at the base.

“Well, you see how it is. Confidentially, I came here, had to go through high school again, went through college, then”—he took a breath—“worked for Treasury Department, Public Library (at present I am on leave). Well, one thing led to another.” He paused to cough, and she felt a moment of darkness as she saw a disgusting cavern in which his tongue lapped helplessly against the embarrassingly naked gum.

_____________

He leaned hack and placed his books and notebook more comfortably. His suit, much too large, extended beyond his shoulders; his frame seemed emaciated, his face sunken beneath the cheekbones; his nose, which bent down so perilously close to his chin, was blue white and like a cleaver. It was revolting in the pallor of his face for his lips to be thin red lines, wet-looking, because the upper lip sank behind the lower lip and was in a way inside the mouth part of the time. She saw that his pants cuffs were beginning to wear.

He continued, “I do not know if you have an interest in libraries? The library school here is very fine, there is Dr. Gustus, very fine, much emphasis on filing systems; there is Dr. Naman, a woman (bookbinding)—now in my discussions with her we have come to some excellent conclusions.”

Margery stared off through the syringa bushes and sounded the well of her pity. Hollow and dry, she waited for a gush of emotion.

He looked at her wonderingly. “You went to Harvard? Perhaps you teach?”

“No,” she said, “I don’t teach.”

“But you read?” he pressed. “You write. It was suggested to me that I try library school. There’s a big demand for librarians now. But I don’t know, it’s a fact, it seems to me, for the library, women are more suited to that work. Again, perhaps you won’t agree with me, but I found library school dull, limiting. Fine for some, but for me, constricting.” He raised his head back as he spoke and looked thoughtfully into the tree above. “Take history, take the Napoleonic wars, take the French Revolution, the Second World War, the A-bomb. I like to consider modern man; it’s exciting. So,” he concluded, stretching out the “so,” “I got out of library. Now I’m in Spanish.” He shrugged his sparrow-like shoulders. “You may think it’s odd, since I know German, my native tongue, that I go into Spanish, but there’s a big demand for Spanish, it’s a big field. Now as to my writing, and I may say that I know such men as Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, I’ve corresponded with them.” He waited for the effect of this to sink in.

“My goodness,” she said, “what sort of thing do you write?”

“Poems,” he said, “short stories, essays, novels, biographies. I’ve won a few medals, had my picture in the paper. It isn’t always easy. Of course I’m a single man myself, so I get by. I have my savings. There is talk of a teaching post; I have a man working on it.” He brought the tip of his pencil down on his notebook. “Do you teach?” he asked.

“No,” she answered, “my husband, you know.”

“Yes, yes, writing, I see, by the catalogue. I want to talk to him about my literary work. I had in mind,” he said, “a literary group. That may sound European to you, it’s a new idea to you?”

“My husband, that is Dr. Freed, writes novels.” She hesitated among these words. Ridiculous to speak of Henry’s writing with this man. She turned in her mind and felt for an easy escape. To be unkind, to cut down with briskness, but she was kind and always faltered. “He writes and teaches too, you know,” she spoke as though to a child, and remained standing to allow him the opportunity to rise and go. She snipped a bit here and there with the garden shears, and drew off her gloves and shook the dirt from the fingers.

“I had in mind a literary group,” he repeated, “a group of artists, does that sound European to you? Foreign, perhaps?”

In her mind she picked up the folders (stiff spring backs in solid black) of Henry’s novels, long novels, thick books which he wrote at furious speed, often forgetting the names of his characters as he went along and changing their physiques capriciously. Also he never finished them. They made an imposing sight and when boxed were most expensive to mail, always much too valuable for slow freight. They took them along whenever they moved, with their children and personal luggage. Often, in the midst of a tour, Henry would ask her where they were and rested easier when he knew they were safe with the spare tire in the trunk of the car. He hoped to strike oil, he said. He knew how much had been made on Gone With the Wind.

Mr. Finebein waited for her to answer. She stood carefully tearing apart a blade of grass. For a moment her impulse was to tell him about her group. It had been her idea to have a group of writers meet once a week to read their recent works to one another. There were five of them, all unpublished authors; as a matter of fact they each had only a few poems, a few short stories. The idea was to stimulate writing. Margery thought she would write more if she had an audience. But she checked her impulse.

“Are your parents here?” said Margery after a pause in which Mr. Finebein surveyed the flower garden.

“Dead,” he answered. “They cooked them.”

“O dear,” Margery gasped.

“You have a lovely garden,” he said. “Does one pluck the flowers?”

She stared uncomprehending for a moment. “Would you like to have some?” she asked.

He nodded. “If it would be your pleasure.”

She picked up the shears and turned to the bed of zinnias, feeling the heat of the sun, the afternoon getting sticky and too hot as it does in September.

“Here,” she said, recklessly snipping the last of the zinnias and the best marigolds. “There now, that is a good bouquet.” She handed them to him. “Oh,” she reached to take them back, “let me take out that white one. It’s starting to die.”

“Never mind, never mind.” He gestured with his hand depreciatingly, and held to the bouquet, but his tone implied that for him a dead flower was an insult.

“Do you live near the campus?” asked Margery, trying to fit Mr. Finebein into the world.

“I have a room, a landlady; however, it’s difficult, the expense and all. I use my savings.” He seemed suffused with a deep sense of injustice. “Now the European universities,” he said, “would have welcomed me. The University of Chicago, one supposes, has no care for enrollment.” He looked at her piercingly. “Can they survive?”

“Did you want to go there?” Margery asked gently.

“They couldn’t see it,” he said. “I don’t know what their trouble was.”

_____________

Margery put her hand thoughtfully to her face. “I know what we’ll do. I’ll take you by Henry’s office. We can all talk over a cup of coffee.”

He became alert. “You have two cars? You each have your own car perhaps?” His eager look, his tone implied that here at least was opulence. “I myself have no car,” he said. “How tired I am, coming all this long distance, walking; it is very exhausting.” He put his head down on his hand and stared at his notebook. He really looked like a man resting after a long journey. He seemed so comfortable in the garden chair, in this way accepting the peace of her garden and the chair for his own.

Margery gave a light protesting snicker. “We have one old car, an old wreck, but it runs. Now if you’ll wait here a moment, I’ll check on a few things and we’ll be off.” She felt stagey, speaking unreal lines, and walked stiffly into the house carefully locking the door behind her. Inside she went softly to the phone and dialed Henry’s office.

“Hello, dear,” she whispered when he answered. When phoning and at partings they used endearments. “Darling,” she whispered.

“What? Can’t hear you.”

“Nothing too bad, but yes, yes it is—it’s awful.”

“Darling, what’s up?” cried Henry. His voice rattled the receiver. “What is the matter with you?” Even in anxiety Henry was apt to accuse her.

She moderated her voice. “I have a student here who’s looking for you.”

“For God’s sake!” His disgust entered her ear and settled in her stomach.

“Tell him I’m busy.” Henry was writing a research paper. “I’m working!”

He didn’t enjoy his work. Research tortured him but “competition,” said the head of the English department, “weeded the staff.”

Margery cupped her hand around the mouthpiece. “I can’t make him go away. I think he’s crazy.” She looked out the window. Mr. Finebein still rocked gently in their chair.

“What?” Henry made the receiver seem vicious. Margery knew he heard.

“Insane,” she hissed. “Insane. Paranoid.” She often felt a clear ability to diagnose.

“For God’s sake!” said Henry.

“So I’m coming by because I don’t know how to get rid of him. I thought we might have coffee and then take him home.” She paused. “He says he’s a famous writer,” she said significantly.

“All right, all right,” Henry was resigned. She waited for him to hang up. Then she brushed her hair and changed her dress and put on French high heels and checked the time. The girls would be in school another hour. She slung a purse strap over her shoulder and went out. She thought her visitor was asleep; he sat with his head bent. “Ready, Mr. Finebein?” she said a little uncertainly. “The car’s this way.” She pointed vaguely toward the street.

_____________

He seemed loath to leave the chair. He had been writing in his notebook. “Here,” he said, tapping the notebook, “I have made a list for you of my works.” He handed her the notebook conclusively.

The titles were in quotations. She read, “Poem to America”—“The Modern Poems”—“The Greek Poems”—“A Nosegay of Flowers”—“Essays on Religious Subjects”—“A Volume of Short Stories”—“A Critical Study of Modern Europe”—“Adrift in the World Tide.”

“The last is a novel I am working on,” he said. “The first is a volume of poems; the title poem is about this great country. There are I should say about two hundred pages of poetry.” He pursed his lips, businesslike. “Second is a book of sonnets. Modern style. The third, sonnets in classical tradition. Fourth, modern verse. Then there are essays on related subjects, philosophy, religion, political thinking, the plight of man. The short stories cover a great range of ideas. Each story is approximately twenty-five thousand words long. The study is a history of Europe, beginning with the French Revolution and bringing it down to modern times. The novel is in progress.” He tapped the notebook with his pencil. He certainly did not want to get up out of the chair. He shook himself together and put his pencil and notebooks in order. It was a little like coaxing an old dog off the doorstep. He slowly elevated himself, separated himself from the chair and followed Margery, stopping at the wrong car, a new Ford, so that Margery had to call, “This one, Mr. Finebein, this old one.” It was frankly dirty and a front tire bulged with a boot. He entered with an unexpected delicate air, and sitting beside her pointed out the buildings of the campus as they drove down the tree-shaded streets. “The gymnasium,” he announced, “the Animal Science building.” The car smoked and overheated almost immediately. Margery hated the scratch of the horsehair stuffing in her back where the seat cover had worn off. She wheeled rapidly up to the ancient hall where Henry hid himself from the world. He was there in one of the small rooms with a morose office mate, tapping on his typewriter; or perched back in his straight chair with the two front legs off the floor, he was jeering at student papers; or he might be reading one of the articles of those arch rivals, his colleagues.

She pressed the horn button and a hoarse cry arose from the bowels of the engine.

“He’ll be down,” she reassured her rider. He nodded and waited passively for the act he had set in motion to shape around him. Presently Henry came around the corner of the building, jaunty, slightly embarrassed. He came around the back of the car to the driver’s side. He was not imposing-looking. His double-breasted business suit needed pressing. He wore perpetually a reserved expression to dress a quite ordinary face. He was exactly average in height.

“I had better get in back,” said Mr. Finebein, stepping out and in again.

Henry gently pushed Margery out of the driver’s seat. “Hello,” he greeted the air, turning half around.

“Mr. Finebein, dear,” said Margery, “wants to talk to you about his writing.”

“Well, now, where shall we go?” asked Henry genially, testing the motor with his foot and checking the dashboard. “Heated up,” he said. “Did you put oil in her?” and raising his voice: “To the coffee shop, Mr. Finebein?”

“At your pleasure,” said Mr. Finebein.

_____________

They went a few blocks further along the elm-lined street. Then they began looking for a proper hole in the line of cars at the curb.

“Just relax,” said Henry, “here we are.” He studied the curb, the distance, he pulled up and backed in twirling the wheel. Margery shifted her weight toward the door and turned her head away. In this way she managed to be true to the kindliness within her. Henry turned the key off, pulling the brake against Margery’s leg. They walked in a loose line toward the corner shop, Mr. Finebein ambling along holding his books and notebook against his chest. An air-conditioned breeze swept against them as they opened the door, too cold, too sharp.

“Wow,” said Henry, “feels good.”

Margery shuddered.

Henry led the way to the back booth. It was in an ell corner shut off from the rest of the room. The room appeared distorted as though under green water. Margery blinked. She took hold of Henry’s sleeve apologetically, “I’m afraid I feel odd.” She pressed her temples with the tips of her fingers. “Could you get me some aspirin, like a dear?”

“Sure,” said Henry and disappeared. Mr. Finebein sat across from Margery.

“I’m sorry you don’t like my company,” he said.

Margery stared.

“I guess I’d better be going,” he said, “if I make you feel bad.”

“Heavens, no!” Margery shook her head and pressed her temple again. “What an idea.”

“Here you are.” Henry handed her the metal box of aspirin. She took a tablet and tried to swallow it without water. It stayed in her throat turning it sour.

“Your wife’s feeling ill,” said Mr. Finebein. “A touch of Freud, perhaps? Perhaps she doesn’t want my company?” There could be hardly any doubt that he was sneering.

Henry laughed as if at a joke. Margery leaned forward from her side of the booth. “What was it like in Germany under Hitler?” she asked.

“Pure hell,” said Mr. Finebein and closed his eyes.

“Did you live in Berlin?”

“No,” said Mr. Finebein opening his eyes again and smiling, “I never saw the beautiful city.”

There was a pause during which he offered no more information. Margery probed. “Where did you live?”

“Nuremberg,” said Mr. Finebein. “Wiped out,” he added.

“I’m not sorry for that,” said Henry. “That’s one city I don’t regret.”

“Mr. Finebein was a librarian in Chicago.” Margery hoped to be tactful.

Henry felt his tie. “How are the libraries in Germany?” he asked politely.

“Frankly,” said Mr. Finebein, “they lost a lot of books. Now they are cataloguing unpublished manuscripts. A great idea. Every manuscript is catalogued; they know where all unpublished works are.”

Margery saw again Mr. Finebein’s list, catalogued.

“What will it be, folks?” The student waiter tipped his white hat and shoved it back on his curls. “How’s the writing course, Mr. Freed, sir?” He grinned; his teeth were full and square. He flexed his knees. “What’ll it be, folks?”

Margery bent over the menu.

“Coffee for me,” said Henry. “How about you, Mr. Finebein?”

“Whatever you desire for me,” said Mr. Finebein. “It’s up to you.” He looked sternly at his books.

“How about a hamburger,” suggested Margery, “or,” she added, “could you eat hamburger, Mr. Finebein?”

“Tomorrow I fast,” he said. “I’ll pay for my own,” he said in an injured tone.

“That’s all right,” Henry sounded hearty.

“A coke,” said Mr. Finebein, “and some ice cream. Any kind, anything,” he mumbled. “Strawberry maybe.” While they waited he turned the pages of his notebook.

_____________

Mr. Finebein stirred his strawberry ice cream. He ate the melted part slowly, painfully. The ice cream became soup in the dish. Taking his pencil he added a quotation mark to the last of his list of writings. The list was upside down facing Henry.

“That’s quite a list,” said Henry. “Any published?”

“Frankly,” said Mr. Finebein, “what do they want? How long,” he went on turning down his mouth, “will the pocketbook last? For instance, I said to Professor Goldmark on the phone yesterday (I was told he was out to church but he came in), I said, ‘I see by the catalogue you are a specialist in modern writing.’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing but Renaissance; I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to cut this short,’ he said, ‘I have guests for breakfast.’ A good Episcopalian,” said Mr. Finebein, “a convert, I suppose.”

“You’re wrong,” said Henry, “he’s not a Jew.”

“No?” said Mr. Finebein. “What else? Maybe I should convert?” he smiled at them both.

“Well, the list is imposing,” said Henry. “But after all we can’t discuss your writing without seeing it.”

“I don’t feel well,” Margery whispered. In spite, or because, of the aspirin she couldn’t focus. She studied Mr. Finebein with his list. It looked suspicious to her, that title, “A Nosegay of Flowers,” written down just as he was looking at her flowers.

“You left your flowers in the car,” she said.

Mr. Finebein pointed to the unused cream beside Henry’s cup. “You forgot?” he asked.

“No,” Henry said, “I don’t use it.”

Mr. Finebein took the cream and deftly poured it over the melted ice cream. He stirred it all around and slowly sipped it, spooning it into his mouth in dribbles. “Frankly,” he said, “I am more interested in history, in the times of the French Revolution, and so on down to the present day. But it is difficult,” he said, “although there are some people working in my behalf.”

“I’m afraid I have to get back to my office.” Henry made a move to rise.

Mr. Finebein lapped up the last pink drop. They walked slowly while Henry stopped to pay the cashier. Mr. Finebein pointed to the magazine rack. “You read that stuff?”

Margery didn’t answer.

Outside the air sparkled with dust. Mr. Finebein climbed into the back seat of the car. “Perhaps it would be out of your way?” he suggested. “I can walk.”

“Nope,” Henry was behind them, “glad to drive you.”

“Three blocks down,” said Mr. Finebein, “to your left. Perhaps we could arrange a meeting, Dr. Freed?” They were moving down the street.

“Well,” said Henry, “yes, but not for a few weeks. I’m busy right now, have to finish some work. Perhaps next month.”

They were both facing ahead. They didn’t see Mr. Finebein’s face.

“Or next semester?” added Mr. Finebein, “or next year? Let me out here,” he ordered coldly. “There’s my landlady.”

Margery had the feeling he didn’t want the landlady to see their car. She opened the door for him. “Goodbye,” she said. Mr. Finebein didn’t answer. He got out holding the bouquet of flowers and his books and notebook. He turned his head away from them and went behind the car. As they drove off he crossed the street without looking in their direction.

“He’s angry,” crooned Margery, “he’s furious.” For some reason, she didn’t know what, maybe the aspirin, her voice was shaking.

“So much the better,” said Henry.

“Insane,” said Margery. “Don’t you agree?”

Henry said nothing. He was shifting gears.

“I don’t believe he lived in Nuremberg,” said Margery. “Where’s his accent?”

“Watch out what you’re doing there, Bud,” Henry muttered, glaring at a passing car. “Oh, he lived there all right.” Henry made a deft turn, lurching Margery against the door.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Margery. “He hasn’t written a line, not a line of that stuff. He made it all up. He goes around with that notebook making lists of titles. I doubt if he has written a line.” She felt contaminated. A sense of universal failure welled up in her.

“Why don’t you learn to drive?” she said.

_____________