IF MARYA LOST her job, if, after her qualifications had been sifted through for the third or fourth time, weighed, judged, found not quite right for this particular college—which was, after all, a highly prestigious college, known for its academic excellence and the general wealth of its alumni—the blame might well be lodged against Eric Nichols, who had encouraged her, inspired her, published her in his journal. Such publications did not count for very much in academic and scholarly terms; in fact they often counted against a candidate. (In addition to The Meridian, Marya now published essays and essay reviews in The Nation, The New Republic, and The New York Review. Gregory joked that if she began to publish in the Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times Book Review her senior colleagues in the English Department would be fearful of letting her go; her enmity might prove dangerous.)

Of course Marya had other qualifications, other strengths. She had published a well-received scholarly book, she continued to publish articles and reviews in her field, she had acquired the reputation for being a dedicated and exacting teacher; she was a woman whose womanliness was neither an issue nor a distraction. She had become shrewd enough to say nothing at all about her nonacademic writing, or to allude to it in the slightly disparaging way in which such writing is generally alluded to, in her profession. (She remembered Maximilian Fein’s dismissal of politics and journalism; she felt at times a stab of guilt—or was it guilty satisfaction?—that she had betrayed him.) Only Marya’s early piece in The Meridian, on the awkward subject of the college community’s relationship with the Rhinelander Air Force Base, had aroused a fair amount of local controversy. Marya had not been prepared for quite such a response: coverage in two regional papers, as well as the student paper; requests for interviews; remarkable letters “pro” and “con”—some angry, some ignorant, but a number supportive and intelligent and encouraging. She had come off rather well in the dispute but she knew enough not to risk anything quite so provoking in the near future. There were now only five full-time women among the tenured staff at the college, and none at all in Marya’s own department; a situation that inspired a great deal of amused contempt on the part of women instructors in private, but virtually no comment at all in public. “Public” generally meant within earshot of a man.