the last Pyramid had been worn down to the desert… Ideas of death and eternity in connection with teeth appear thus early in my life, and it comes to me now that behind ‘lux aeterna’ is the dentist’s overhead light which I described in a short story (about a man who tried to kill himself)… (‘Looking down your throat’ is an expression of triumphant aggression and hostility, chiefly in poker games).”
In 1930, when she was seven, Diane began attending Ethical Culture School on Central Park West. Most of the couples the Nemerovs knew were sending their children to this school, which was part of the Ethical Cultural system, based on the religious humanistic philosophy, also called Ethical Culture, which had been developed by Felix Adler in New York around 1867. Adler, who’d been trained as a rabbi, maintained it didn’t matter whether you believed in God; in life what mattered was “deed, not creed.” At Ethical Culture emphasis was placed on “a love of learning,” one of its finest English teachers, Elbert Lenrow, says. Lenrow, who was also Howard’s first mentor, adds, “The artistic development of each student was stressed and particular value was placed on the creative arts as both an intellectual discipline and a means of nourishment.”
Other teachers at Ethical Culture remember Diane as subject to occasional tantrums but otherwise well behaved and “powerfully bright.” “Diane Nemerov demonstrates a large vocabulary, the ability to read and concentrate better than her peers and she has a marked talent for drawing,” stated one third-grade report.
David Nemerov had already recognized his daughter’s mental agility, her specialness. He was proud, but he was fearful, too. After reading the school report he remarked to his sister Bessie Shapiro that maybe Diane was too bright for a little girl. What should they do? He subsequentlycontacted Ethical Culture by letter and asked that Diane be given extra homework. They did so and she rapidly completed it.
Now she was growing tall and slender, and her thick brown hair hung down her back in tangled curls. Mamselle had left the Nemerovs the previous summer and Diane “loathed” her new nanny (and all subsequent ones). In rebellion she became a “grubby kid” for a while. “I refused to keep clean,” she said. Her father was furious “because I was the apple of his eye and he wanted me to be the most possibly beautiful that I could possibly be.”
Excruciatingly shy, she lived in a state of constant fear. For years cruel and wily kidnappers pursued her in her fantasies—panting, haunting her steps. From an early age she was beset by shadows of herself as persecuted victim and courageous heroine—products of her rage and longing to be noticed. But, like most imaginative children, she told no one of her secret terrors—nor would she admit for the longest time that she preferred darkness to light—loved, in fact, to stay in a pitch-black room where she could wait for monsters to come and tickle her to death. Her sister, Renée, insisted that a lamp be kept burning in her bedroom all night. Once the lampshade caught on fire and Mr. Nemerov had to run and beat out the flames. It was around four in the morning. Diane stayed curled up among her pillows in the purple darkness, listening to the scuffling and the cries.
In her autobiography she confided, “The teachers always used to think I was smart and it would torment me because I knew that I was really terribly dumb.”
At around this period of her life the family moved from the apartment on 90th Street to another at Park Avenue and 93rd. Then during the Depression they moved again, settling at 146 Central Park West in an apartment house called the San Remo, where Diane was to live until shortly before she got married.
The San Remo apartment was huge—fourteen rooms with wood-paneled walls and decorated with French and English antiques. “It was essentially dreary,” Diane said. The only
In 1930, when she was seven, Diane began attending Ethical Culture School on Central Park West. Most of the couples the Nemerovs knew were sending their children to this school, which was part of the Ethical Cultural system, based on the religious humanistic philosophy, also called Ethical Culture, which had been developed by Felix Adler in New York around 1867. Adler, who’d been trained as a rabbi, maintained it didn’t matter whether you believed in God; in life what mattered was “deed, not creed.” At Ethical Culture emphasis was placed on “a love of learning,” one of its finest English teachers, Elbert Lenrow, says. Lenrow, who was also Howard’s first mentor, adds, “The artistic development of each student was stressed and particular value was placed on the creative arts as both an intellectual discipline and a means of nourishment.”
Other teachers at Ethical Culture remember Diane as subject to occasional tantrums but otherwise well behaved and “powerfully bright.” “Diane Nemerov demonstrates a large vocabulary, the ability to read and concentrate better than her peers and she has a marked talent for drawing,” stated one third-grade report.
David Nemerov had already recognized his daughter’s mental agility, her specialness. He was proud, but he was fearful, too. After reading the school report he remarked to his sister Bessie Shapiro that maybe Diane was too bright for a little girl. What should they do? He subsequentlycontacted Ethical Culture by letter and asked that Diane be given extra homework. They did so and she rapidly completed it.
Now she was growing tall and slender, and her thick brown hair hung down her back in tangled curls. Mamselle had left the Nemerovs the previous summer and Diane “loathed” her new nanny (and all subsequent ones). In rebellion she became a “grubby kid” for a while. “I refused to keep clean,” she said. Her father was furious “because I was the apple of his eye and he wanted me to be the most possibly beautiful that I could possibly be.”
Excruciatingly shy, she lived in a state of constant fear. For years cruel and wily kidnappers pursued her in her fantasies—panting, haunting her steps. From an early age she was beset by shadows of herself as persecuted victim and courageous heroine—products of her rage and longing to be noticed. But, like most imaginative children, she told no one of her secret terrors—nor would she admit for the longest time that she preferred darkness to light—loved, in fact, to stay in a pitch-black room where she could wait for monsters to come and tickle her to death. Her sister, Renée, insisted that a lamp be kept burning in her bedroom all night. Once the lampshade caught on fire and Mr. Nemerov had to run and beat out the flames. It was around four in the morning. Diane stayed curled up among her pillows in the purple darkness, listening to the scuffling and the cries.
In her autobiography she confided, “The teachers always used to think I was smart and it would torment me because I knew that I was really terribly dumb.”
At around this period of her life the family moved from the apartment on 90th Street to another at Park Avenue and 93rd. Then during the Depression they moved again, settling at 146 Central Park West in an apartment house called the San Remo, where Diane was to live until shortly before she got married.
The San Remo apartment was huge—fourteen rooms with wood-paneled walls and decorated with French and English antiques. “It was essentially dreary,” Diane said. The only