Sloan Wilson - Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

Miss MacDonald slipped out a side door, and Hopkins led Pierce to the dining room. A waitress served Pierce a bowl of fresh fruit, waffles, and sausage patties. Hopkins had only a bowl of dry cereal with skim milk and a cup of black coffee. “I wish I had your appetite!” he said to his guest. “It’s this city air that takes it away from a man!”

Throughout the meal Pierce expounded his views on television programs, which consisted mostly of the thought that more old-fashioned shows, such as square dances, rodeos, and hymn sings, would be welcomed by rural audiences. Hopkins agreed with him heartily. At a quarter of nine, the doorbell rang again, and Hopkins jumped up to answer it. That was one of the advantages in not having a servant open the door — it gave Hopkins an opportunity to conclude interviews without being impolite. Dr. Andrews, an urbane man with prematurely white hair, walked in, carrying a small black bag. “ Thank you for coming up,” Hopkins said. “I’ll be with you in a few moments. Mr. Pierce, this is Dr. Andrews— don’t go, Mr. Pierce — I had hoped to chat with you longer. Well, if you have to go, I understand. I certainly do appreciate your advice on the programs, and you can be sure it will have effect!”

When Pierce had left, Hopkins and the doctor sat down in the living room. “How have you been feeling?” the doctor asked.

“Fine — better than ever!”

“Trouble getting to sleep?”

“Not a bit!”

The doctor opened his bag and took out a stethoscope. Hopkins took off his coat and opened his shirt. The doctor listened to his heart intently for several seconds. “It sounds pretty good,” he said finally. “Had any more dizziness lately?”

“Not a trace of it!”

“Difficulty breathing?”

“No.”

The doctor put his stethoscope back in his bag and took out his equipment for measuring blood pressure. Hopkins rolled up his sleeve and looked out the window at the green lawn on the roof while the doctor strapped the device to his arm. There was an interval of silence. “It’s up a little,” the doctor said finally. “Not badly — nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good,” Hopkins said, relieved.

“It’s a warning, though,” the doctor continued. “I guess there’s no use in my repeating it: you ought to slow down.”

“I’ve been getting plenty of rest,” Hopkins said.

“I’ll say it to satisfy my own conscience,” the doctor continued. “You ought to take a long vacation — a couple of months, just lying in the sun. You ought to get yourself a hobby, something to help you relax.”

Hopkins looked at him intently, but said nothing.

“You ought to cut way down on your schedule,” the doctor went on. “Start getting into your office about ten-thirty or eleven and leaving about three or four in the afternoon — there’s no reason why a man in your position can’t do that. In the long run, you’d be ensuring yourself more working hours. And cut out all these outside activities of yours — take it easy for a few years. You’ve got to slow down!”

“Are you advising me to retire, Doctor?” Hopkins asked dryly.

“No — I’d be satisfied if you just followed a normal, human routine!”

“I will,” Hopkins said courteously. “I certainly appreciate your advice, Doctor, and I’ll take it. Thanks so much for coming up so early this morning!”

When the doctor had gone, Miss MacDonald called for Hopkins’ car, a black Cadillac five years old, driven by an aging Negro chauffeur. They started driving toward the United Broadcasting building. Before they had gone three blocks the car got caught in a bad traffic jam and could barely crawl. Hopkins put his head back on the soft gray upholstery and closed his eyes. “You’ve got to slow down!” the doctor had said. It seemed to Hopkins that people had been telling him that all his life.

It had started when he was a boy in public school. He had been editor of the school paper, and though he had been too small to excel at athletics, he had been manager of the football and basketball teams. He had stood at the top of his class scholastically, and whenever there had been a dance or a school play, he had always been chairman of the arrangements committee. “You’ve got to slow down!” the teachers had told him. “Take it easy, boy — you’ll wear yourself out!”

At Princeton, where he had gone on a scholarship, it had been more of the same. He had headed the debating team, managed the football team, and engaged in a dozen other activities in addition to maintaining an almost straight A average in his studies. “You’ve got to slow down!” his faculty adviser had told him. “Take it easy!”

But he had not slowed down. Summers he had worked at all kinds of jobs, always astonishing his employers with his energy. After college had come a brief stint in the Army, a period during which his friends had kidded him about wanting to be a general. Upon being released from service in 1919, he had worked for a few years at a brokerage house before going to the United Broadcasting Corporation, which had just been started. A year later he had met Helen Perry, who had at the time been a fashionable beauty in New York. He had pursued her with all the zeal he always devoted to anything he wanted, and on June 3, 1921, he had married her. Up to that time, Hopkins had never had a failure in his life.

“You’ve got to slow down!” Helen had started saying, even before they were married, but unlike the teachers and faculty advisers, she had not let it go at that. As she discovered that it was Hopkins’ habit to spend most of his evenings and week ends at his office, she had become first annoyed, then indignant, and, finally, hurt and bewildered.

“Life isn’t worth living like this,” she had said. “I never see you! You’ve got to slow down!”

He had tried. Especially when their first child, Robert, had come, during the second year of their marriage, he had tried. He had come home every evening at six o’clock and conscientiously played with the baby and sat talking with his wife, and he had been genuinely appalled to find that the baby made him nervous, and that while he was talking to his wife, it was almost impossible for him to sit quietly. He had felt impelled to get up and pace up and down the room, jingling his change in his pockets and glancing at the clock. For the first time in his life he had started to drink heavily during those long evenings at home. Gradually he had started staying late at the office again — by that time he had already had a fairly important job at the United Broadcasting Corporation. Helen had remonstrated with him. There had been recriminations, high-pitched arguments, and threats of divorce.

All right, it’s a problem, he had said to himself after a particularly bitter scene — it’s a problem that must be met head on, like all other problems. To Helen he had said, in a quiet voice, “I don’t want to have any more scenes — they wear us both out. I’m prepared to admit that whatever is wrong is entirely my fault. I am preoccupied with my work — I’ve been that way all my life, and it is nothing for which you should blame yourself.”

She had gone pale. “Do you want a divorce?” she had asked.

“No,” he had said. “Do you?”

“No.”

They had never talked about divorce again, but she had begun to refer to his preoccupation with work as a disease. “You’ve got to do something about it,” she had said, and had suggested a psychiatrist.

For two years Hopkins had submitted to psychoanalysis. Five times a week he had lain on a couch in the psychoanalyst’s apartment on Sixty-ninth Street and recalled his childhood. His father had been a cheerful, rather ineffectual man who, each afternoon upon returning from his job as assistant manager of a small paper mill in an upstate New York village, had spent most of his time rocking on the front porch of their shabby but comfortable house. His mother had been disappointed by the modesty of her husband’s achievements and aspirations and had been bitterly condescending to him. Leaving her family to fend for itself most of the time, she had thrown all her energy into working for the local garden club and a bewildering variety of social and civic organizations. As she gained positions of leadership in these groups, her resentment at her serenely undistinguished husband had grown. Finally she had established herself in a separate room on the third floor of their house and, throughout most of Ralph’s boyhood, had conducted herself like a great lady temporarily forced to live with poor relatives.