Before New York, the cracks were already there, but now they began to split open and gape, and the difference between how a thing or a place or a person appears and the reality becomes alarmingly visible, garish.

It is perhaps fortunate that Sylvia was oblivious to the commotion behind the scenes. Apparently, Henry O. Teltscher had written a letter to Betsy Talbot Blackwell, warning her that one of her guest editors was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Hasn’t everyone taken a nervous breakdown at some point? Maybe I suffered a nervous breakthrough. I don’t know what tothink. It echoes inside your skull.