No one knew. He often took sudden sick leaves. He went on binges, it was thought; he had woman trouble; spent a night or two in jail, D & D, drunk and disorderly, quite a character . . . if you cared for characters. (“He used to talk my ear off if I let him,” one of the older members of the department said. “He was really sort of appealing if you had the time to draw him out. . . .”)

OF COURSE SYLVESTER returned, reappeared. On the stairs, in Marya’s corridor. Hauling his wheeled wringer mop along with the greatest possible noise. Big-bellied, limping, trailing ashes. In his wake the air quivered with powerful rank odors that could not be ignored: Marya smiled to see two young women undergraduates wrinkle their noses in surprised disgust but make the effort not to glance at each other or to comment—they weren’t racists, after all. They were very pretty very bright liberal-minded young women, uncontaminated by the prejudices of another generation. Marya Knauer was a few years their senior but she was assuredly one of them.

Of course Sylvester returned, this was his job, his livelihood. G’morning, Pro-fessor Knauer, how’re you Pro-fessor Knauer. . . . Marya’s office stank of cigarette smoke and Sylvester’s sweat; her window was shut tight and locked; the radiator had been turned up full blast; it was late March now and almost warm. . . . When Marya walked into the room, into that blast of dry heat, she felt the very pores of her skin contract in a panic that was sheerly physiological. Oh Sylvester, she thought, oh dear Christ why . . . ?

THE CHAIRMAN OF the department liked Marya, he declared himself impressed by Marya, but had his doubts—as he frankly, forthrightly told her—about the areas of scholarship in which she was interested. Of course he couldn’t presume to dictate, or even to suggest, but since she was new in the profession and new at the college. . . .

All that week rumors had been flying about, ignoble rumors, shameful rumors: whose contract would not be renewed, who would be given a final one-year contract, who would be granted tenure, even promoted: it was a new experience for Marya, and not a very pleasant one, suddenly caring about matters she’d resolutely promised herself to ignore.

Sink yourself in work, Marya; or, if you’re too nervous suddenly (are you nervous? or only excited, apprehensive?) then sink yourself in the work of others, in great thoughts, elevated souls, Walt Whitman and William James and Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau. . . .

An old ploy, learned from poor Mr. Schwilk, so very long ago.

Still, such practices gave her solace. They gave her, these edgy days, a certain measure of dignity.