IT DIDN'T TAKE ME LONG to realize that forsaking Marjorie in my last few weeks in Cincinnati, abandoning her for Gussie, was a colossal stupidity. Soon after I got home to New York, staying with my parents in Jamaica, Queens, I began to see how foolish I had been to allow myself to be enticed away from my true love. Back in New York, I had some time to reflect on my new situation, to ponder why deep down I was in a kind of emotional torpor. For the first time in my life I sat around listless, unfocused, oddly uncertain of myself.

I began to understand that Gussie's musical gifts, so natural and easy, and enticing, hid a certain flashy superficialness, and that, on the other hand, Margie's slower pace of learning, often showing signs of real struggle, rested on a much deeper, richer bedrock of talent. With Gussie talent just gushed forth, seemingly unhindered, while with Margie it had to be coaxed out slowly and deliberately—and patiently. Precociously talented myself, with all things musical coming easily to me, and with a quick, alert mind ready to absorb and grasp whatever knowledge came my way, I must have become a mite disenchanted with Margie's slower pace and momentarily captivated by Gussie's dazzling, easy ways.

My mother, generally not one to interfere with her son's love life—my parents were truly remarkable in that regard—nevertheless one day, with the subtlest of hints, let it be known that she didn't care all that much for Gussie, that she wasn't really the right girl for me, and that she didn't quite trust her. My confused feelings were suddenly up against a mature woman's intuitions. Something clicked into place within me, something I couldn't fully rationalize. But it began to worm its way into my conscience. And suddenly I knew with absolute certainty that in one way or another I had to bring Margie back into my life.

But how? When? I remembered her telling me that she wanted to continue studying with Mme Leonard during the summer. But where? Not at the college's summer school, because I knew that Leonard didn't teach there in the summer. Then it came back to me that she had mentioned a summer institute someplace in Ohio (actually it was Kenyon College).