I was thrilled that the good people at the New York Times Book Review chose to use the picture of Norman and Billy to accompany Alan Riding’s review of Conscience in the July 3 issue. It’s one of my favorite pictures. In fact, I keep it on my desk, along with a little reproduction of Alice Neel’s painting “Hartley” torn out of the London Review of Books; a postcard of William Adolphe Bouguereau’s A Young Girl Defending Herself against Eros; and a picture of a road disappearing into the woods in Wicklow, Ireland (the tiny figure of the girl striding into the dark is my friend Colby Hall. The image gives me courage!). But back to the picture of Norman and Billy. It was taken at their house in Ridgefield, Connecticut, which was a haven to them. From the angle of the shot–and the way Billy reaches toward the photographer–it seems likely that Violet, Norman’s wife, took the picture. This was before the war broke out in Europe. Norman called it a time of bliss. From his smile, it seems it was.