Chapter 1 The Third Level Solutions
Question - 21 : - How did Louisa react when the narrator told his wish to go to the third level to buy tickets?
Answer - 21 : -
When the narrator told Louisa about his wish she got pretty worried. She was a loving and a caring wife. She got alarmed at Charley’s claim of having been to the third level. His exchanging the currency was a cause of concern. She thought the third level to be a product of Charley’s imagination and asked him to stop looking for it. However, after some time they both started looking for the third level.
Question - 22 : - Why was going to the psychiatrist the obvious step? Did it help?
Answer - 22 : -
Charley was convinced that there were three and not just two levels at the Grand Central Station, when all others claimed there were only two. Going to the psychiatrist was the obvious step because he wanted his opinion on whether it was insanity on his part to believe so. The psychiatrist too interpreted his delusion as a waking-dream wish fulfilment and, like his stamp collection, a temporary refuge from a world full of tensions, worries, insecurity, fear, war and envy.
Question - 23 : - Why could Charley not be convinced by his distractions that the third level was only a wish fulfilment?
Answer - 23 : -
Charley could not be convinced that the third level was a temporary escape from reality through fantasy like stamp collection. He argued that his grandfather too was into stamp collection and he started Charley’s collection. He said that at that time people were content and lived in peaceful times and did not need to seek such refuge.
Question - 24 : - What happened to the narrator’s psychiatrist friend Sam Weiner? What do you deduce from it?
Answer - 24 : -
One day the narrator’s psychiatrist friend Sam Weiner disappeared. He was a city boy. He always
said that he liked Galesburg very much and its sound. From this I deduce that even Sam was affected by the stress of modern living and sought temporary refuge by travelling through time.
Question - 25 : - Why was Charley sure that his psychiatrist friend had gone back to the year 1894 in Galesburg?
Answer - 25 : -
Charley’s psychiatrist friend Sam had disappeared. One night going through his first-day covers,
Charley found one dated 1894 and with his Grandfather’s address on it. He opened and found inside a letter from Sam addressed to him. He invited him to the third level saying that it was worth it.
Question - 26 : - What is the first-day cover?
Answer - 26 : -
At that time when a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some of them and use them in order to mail envelopes to themselves and the postmark proves the date. That envelope is called the first- day cover.
Question - 27 : - Describe the first-day cover envelope that the narrator found among his collection.
Answer - 27 : -
The first-day cover envelope was dated July 18, 1894. It was addressed to his grandfather in Galesburg. It carried a letter from Sam addressed to Charley. The stamp was a six-cent, dull brown, with a picture of President Garfield.
Question - 28 : - What had Sam Weiner written on the paper in the first-day cover?
Answer - 28 : -
Sam Weiner had invited the narrator to the third level. It was worth it. It added that it was true, there existed the third level and he had found that. He had been there for two weeks. He could hear someone playing a piano, down the street. They were singing ‘Seeing Nelly Home’.
Question - 29 : - What did the narrator find about Sam Weiner when he went to the stamp and coin store?
Answer - 29 : -
When the narrator went to the stamp and coin store he came to know that Sam had bought eight hundred dollars worth of old currency. That ought to set him up in a nice little hay, feed and grain business. He always wanted to do that. He didn’t want to go back to his old business. Not in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1894, Charley felt that the services of a psychiatrist would not be needed in Galesburg of 1894, his friend would be jobless there.
Question - 30 : - What is the evidence that Charley often sought escape through time travel?
Answer - 30 : -
Charley had often bumped into new doorways, archways and stairways at the Grand Central and got lost. Once he had got into a long tunnel, about a mile long, and another time had landed in an office building on the Forty-sixth street, three blocks away. This makes it evident that Charley, often sought escape through wishful dreaming and in nostalgic memories. He often lived in a world of fantasy.