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The reading at the National Arts Club was a few hours ago, and it went very well. Many friends were there. I know I was the best of the three readers; Dick said that I have “stage presence,” and I suppose I’m a ham, though a nervous one.

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Saul Bellow was being besieged by fans and photographers. Sitting on the couch, he was nattily dressed in a tan suit, blue Oxford shirt, and navy bow tie. Alice and I forced our way through the crowd and paid our respects.

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I was exceedingly polite and tried to be as genteel as possible. I had never been exposed to so many old-line Protestant people from “good families” before: the men in their woolly grey suits and the elderly women in their print dresses with the inevitable pin and string of pearls.