hours of disorganized search before she would admit that he
no longer owned it. He kept meaning to get his books arranged in some
kind of order, but they wouldn’t let themselves be arranged; every time
he started the project, he ended up with piles all over the floor and
himself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the debris, deep in some
fascinating volume he had forgotten he owned. The bookshelves were as
motley as the volumes they housed; he had always meant to have some
bookcases built in….
What had he done with Randolph’s book? Damn it, he had to
read Randolph’s book, that was the least a biographer could do.
Standing in the middle of the floor, like a pillar in the midst of a
forum paved with literature, Michael scratched his chin. He must have
given it to someone. Why hadn’t he read it himself? That was not
unusual, though; he was a compulsive book buyer, and his collection
included a deplorably large group that he had never had time to read.
He would just have to buy another copy of The Smoke of Her
Burning .
But it wasn’t that easy. The book was out of print. After
all, as the third bookdealer pointed out waspishly, the printing
presses of America poured out thousands of new books every year. You
couldn’t expect them to keep every old title in stock. Oh, sure, The
Smoke of Her Burning had been an important book. But you
couldn’t expect…
So Michael tried the secondhand bookstores and
encountered another snare; he could waste days in such places. He
finally found the book, but not until he had loaded himself with old
masterpieces he hadn’t been looking for and probably wouldn’t
read—including, for reasons he refused to consider, a worn copy of
somebody’s History of Witchcraft . By the time he
got home, he had transferred his annoyance to Gordon’s book, and no
longer wanted to read it.
There were plenty of other things to be done. He spent
two afternoons in the newspaper morgues reading about the public
exploits of Gordon Randolph. It was an unexpectedly depressing
activity. Some of the yellowed, crumbling clippings were over twenty
years old; the face of a young Gordon Randolph mummified by antique
newsprint made any attempt at immortality seem futile.
The clippings came from sports pages, literary columns,
and the general-news sections, but there was one significant omission.
Randolph’s name did not appear in the gossip columns. Rarely, there
might be a mention of his presence at some charity affair or concert,
but he never escorted a lady who was not impeccable in reputation and
social status. Either Randolph’s private life was arranged with a
circumspection that verged on Top Secret, or he was abnormally well
behaved. Not a wild oat in the whole field.
His marriage had rated a long column, and the lady
reporter gave it the Cinderella approach—Professor Weds Student,
Millionaire Marries Policeman’s Daughter. They had been married at the
college chapel. There was a picture of Linda Randolph in her wedding
dress, and Michael found it more depressing, for different reasons,
than Gordon’s photographs. Poor as the print was, it conveyed something
of that quality Randolph had vainly tried to describe. It conveyed
something else—happiness. She glowed with it, even through cheap paper
and smeary ink. From that, Michael thought, to what I saw three days
ago. He turned the page quickly.
All of it, sports achievements, literary kudos, political
successes, were dry bones. This was just the beginning. The next step
was to talk to people who knew Randolph. So, on Wednesday, Michael got
his car out and drove up to the campus of the well-known Ivy League
school where Randolph had matriculated.
He had taken the precaution of providing himself with a
general letter of introduction, and it finally got him into the sanctum
of a Vice-President in charge of something. Public Relations, to judge
from the gray-haired gentleman’s suave manner. The President of the
university was unavailable.
no longer owned it. He kept meaning to get his books arranged in some
kind of order, but they wouldn’t let themselves be arranged; every time
he started the project, he ended up with piles all over the floor and
himself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the debris, deep in some
fascinating volume he had forgotten he owned. The bookshelves were as
motley as the volumes they housed; he had always meant to have some
bookcases built in….
What had he done with Randolph’s book? Damn it, he had to
read Randolph’s book, that was the least a biographer could do.
Standing in the middle of the floor, like a pillar in the midst of a
forum paved with literature, Michael scratched his chin. He must have
given it to someone. Why hadn’t he read it himself? That was not
unusual, though; he was a compulsive book buyer, and his collection
included a deplorably large group that he had never had time to read.
He would just have to buy another copy of The Smoke of Her
Burning .
But it wasn’t that easy. The book was out of print. After
all, as the third bookdealer pointed out waspishly, the printing
presses of America poured out thousands of new books every year. You
couldn’t expect them to keep every old title in stock. Oh, sure, The
Smoke of Her Burning had been an important book. But you
couldn’t expect…
So Michael tried the secondhand bookstores and
encountered another snare; he could waste days in such places. He
finally found the book, but not until he had loaded himself with old
masterpieces he hadn’t been looking for and probably wouldn’t
read—including, for reasons he refused to consider, a worn copy of
somebody’s History of Witchcraft . By the time he
got home, he had transferred his annoyance to Gordon’s book, and no
longer wanted to read it.
There were plenty of other things to be done. He spent
two afternoons in the newspaper morgues reading about the public
exploits of Gordon Randolph. It was an unexpectedly depressing
activity. Some of the yellowed, crumbling clippings were over twenty
years old; the face of a young Gordon Randolph mummified by antique
newsprint made any attempt at immortality seem futile.
The clippings came from sports pages, literary columns,
and the general-news sections, but there was one significant omission.
Randolph’s name did not appear in the gossip columns. Rarely, there
might be a mention of his presence at some charity affair or concert,
but he never escorted a lady who was not impeccable in reputation and
social status. Either Randolph’s private life was arranged with a
circumspection that verged on Top Secret, or he was abnormally well
behaved. Not a wild oat in the whole field.
His marriage had rated a long column, and the lady
reporter gave it the Cinderella approach—Professor Weds Student,
Millionaire Marries Policeman’s Daughter. They had been married at the
college chapel. There was a picture of Linda Randolph in her wedding
dress, and Michael found it more depressing, for different reasons,
than Gordon’s photographs. Poor as the print was, it conveyed something
of that quality Randolph had vainly tried to describe. It conveyed
something else—happiness. She glowed with it, even through cheap paper
and smeary ink. From that, Michael thought, to what I saw three days
ago. He turned the page quickly.
All of it, sports achievements, literary kudos, political
successes, were dry bones. This was just the beginning. The next step
was to talk to people who knew Randolph. So, on Wednesday, Michael got
his car out and drove up to the campus of the well-known Ivy League
school where Randolph had matriculated.
He had taken the precaution of providing himself with a
general letter of introduction, and it finally got him into the sanctum
of a Vice-President in charge of something. Public Relations, to judge
from the gray-haired gentleman’s suave manner. The President of the
university was unavailable.
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