NCERT Book Class 12 English (Vistas) Chapter 1 The Third Level

1
The Third Level
Jack Finney
Before you read
Have you ever had any curious experience which others find hard to
believe?

THE presidents of the New York Central and the
New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads
will swear on a stack of timetables that there
are only two. But I say there are three, because
I’ve been on the third level of the Grand Central
Station. Yes, I’ve taken the obvious step: I talked What does
to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others. I the third level
told him about the third level at Grand Central refer to?
Station, and he said it was a waking-dream
wish fulfillment. He said I was unhappy. That made my wife kind
of mad, but he explained that he meant the modern world is full
of insecurity, fear, war, worry and all the rest of it, and that I just
want to escape. Well, who doesn’t? Everybody I know wants to
escape, but they don’t wander down into any third level at Grand
Central Station.
But that’s the reason, he said, and my friends all agreed.
Everything points to it, they claimed. My stamp collecting, for
example; that’s a ‘temporary refuge from reality.’ Well, maybe, but
my grandfather didn’t need any refuge from reality; things were
pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started
my collection. It’s a nice collection too, blocks of four of practically