Gorillas in the Mist Read Online Free PDF Page B

system. Kitty and Richard gave the visitors a cordial reception, though Kitty was so nervous she was shaking. She felt that her daughter’s entire future lay in her hands. And marriage into such a distinguished family was more than she could have dreamed of for her only child.
    As Dian may have anticipated, the Forresters were not impressed by the Prices. Though Alexie and his mother did their best to conceal this fact, Sister Maura was openly hostile. From her rigidly Catholic point of view, the Prices were living in sin since Kitty had been divorced. Dian’s already shaky relationship with Alexie was further jarred by this unpleasant complication.
    Dian again immersed herself in her own work, still trying to rid herself of the safari debt. She was living so close to the bone that she was occasionally negligent about her rent, and at one point the power company cut off her electricity.
    This period of drab endeavor was relieved by the attentions of a handful of well-to-do Louisville admirers. Although Dian found these men and their lives superficial in the extreme, she was not above using her experiences with them to impress her society-conscious mother, and perhaps to excuse her failure to ensnare the illustrious Alexie.
    “My social life is a whirl. Cream of Louisville society. Mostly I’ve been seeing this teddy-bear type who maintains a job at the university here but really doesn’t have to work. Very leisurely. We went to his sister’s house for an afternoon of riding—very plush, with a stable full of show horses and jumpers and a groom for each horse. During cocktail hour I showed the African movies. Then he dragged me to some in-laws for the most ostentatious birthday party, which took place in a house that must have been spread over at least an acre—Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, formal gardens,and a go-go girl rented for the evening, plus a combo. So, you see, I don’t have much time to brood about Alexie, though he still calls all the time.”
    In his abrupt and unpredictable way, Alexie suddenly appeared in Louisville, playing the ardent suitor. He demanded, rather than proposed, marriage and insisted on setting a date for the following August. Dian allowed herself to be swept along but not overwhelmed by him.
    He has promised me an engagement ring made from a family heirloom belonging to the Austrian royals, but what he gave me was a silk negligee covered with lace-breathtaking but somewhat impractical.
    Anyway, the weekend was a dream. One of the happiest I’ve ever had. We spent the day at Glenmary just talking about our love and at night went to Mrs. Henry’s-Mary White’s mother-and I got all dressed up in borrowed plumes. We went to the Old House for chateaubriand and wine, then on the town and danced to dawn.
    When Alexie returned to Notre Dame, Dian’s skepticism about a future with him had been somewhat dispelled. But not for long. Within a month he had changed his plans.
    “He now wants to postpone the wedding for two years!” she wrote to the Prices. “He says, being a student, he feels he’s not ready financially to take on a wife! Of course, I would intend to work, but that doesn’t seem to be his style. He feels some horrible stigma attaches to the working wife. That aunt of his, the nun, influenced him greatly. I know she didn’t like me—or you, I might add. You know, being divorced and so on. Anyway, please don’t be heartbroken because I’m not. I’ve made it clear I don’t intend to wait around for another two years if he can’t make up his mind.”
    A few weeks later, in March 1966, Dr. Louis Leakey, whom she had not seen or heard from since her visit to Olduvai Gorge three years earlier, arrived in Louisville on a lecture tour—and the course of Dian’s life was irrevocably changed.

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    T he auditorium was filled almost an hour before the lecture began, and I had to sit nearly at the back. I had brought along the three articles I’d written for