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madonna and child hung, blue and pink on gold; a tiny painting in a large gilded frame. “Berenson says it’s a Duccio,” Jastrow observed, with a little wave at the painting, “and that’s enough for me. It’s not authenticated. Now then. You sit there, in the light, so that I can see you. Just put those magazines on the floor. Good. Is that a comfortable chair? Fine.” He sighed and laid a thumb against his lower lip. “Now, Byron, why didn’t you go to the Naval Academy? Aren’t you proud of your father?”
    Byron sat up in his chair. “I think my father may be Chief of Naval Operations one day.”
    “Isn’t he worth emulating?”
    “My brother Warren’s doing that. I’m just not interested.”
    “Dr. Milano wrote that you took a naval reserve course and obtained a commission.”
    “It made my father feel good.”
    “And you’ve had no second thoughts about the Navy? It’s not too late yet.”
    Byron shook his head, smiling. Jastrow lit a cigarette, studying Byron’s face. The young man said, “Do you really like living in Italy, sir?”
    “Well, I was ordered to a warm climate. I did first visit Florida, Arizona, southern California, and the French Riviera.” The professor spoke these place-names with an irony that wrote them off, one by one, as ridiculous or disagreeable. “Italy is beautiful, quiet, and cheap.”
    “You don’t mind making your home in a Fascist country?”
    Jastrow’s smile was indulgent. “There are good and bad things in all political systems.”
    “How did you ever come to write A Jew’s Jesus , sir? Did you write it here?”
    “Oh, no, but it got me here.” Jastrow spoke somewhat smugly. “I was using the Bible in a course on ancient history, you see. And as a boy in Poland I’d been a Talmud scholar, so in teaching the New Testament I tended to stress the rabbinic sources that Jesus and Paul used. This novelty seemed to fascinate Yale juniors. I cobbled up a book, with the working title Talmudic Themes in Early Christianity , and then at the last minute I thought of A Jew’s Jesus . The Book-of-the-Month Club selected it.” Jastrow made a soft gesture with both hands all around the room, smiling. “And here I am. The club payment bought this place. Now then, Byron, what are your plans? Are you going to return to the United States?”
    “I don’t know. I couldn’t be more up in the air.”
    “Do you want a job?”
    Byron was taken aback. “Well, I guess maybe I do, sir.”
    Jastrow ambled to his desk and searched through a pile of books, taking off his glasses and holding the titles very close to his face. “I had a fine researcher, a boy from Yale, but his parents called him home, afraid of a war - ah, here we are. Can I interest you, for twenty dollars a week, in the Emperor Constantine? This is a good general biography to start with.”
    “Sir, I’ve flunked more history courses –”
    “I see. You don’t want the job.”
    The young man took the thick book and turned it dubiously in his hands. “No. I’ll try it. Thank you.”
    “Oh, you will, will you? When you say you have no aptitude? Why?”
    “Well, for the money, and to be around you.” This was true enough, though it omitted a third good reason: Natalie Jastrow.
    Jastrow looked stern, and then burst out laughing. “We’ll give it a try.”
    * * *
    The letter his parents received from him some time later about the girl - which elicited Victor Henry’s strong answer - was unintentionally misleading. There was a love affair going on, but Natalie’s lover was Leslie Slote. His letters came two or three times a week: long fat white Foreign Service envelopes, addressed in an elongated stiff hand, in brown ink, with stamps stuck over the government frank. Byron hated the sight of them.
    He was spending hours every day with her in the huge second-floor room that was Jastrow’s main library. Her desk was there. She answered letters, typed manuscripts, and with the Italian woman managed the