The Secret History

Slowly I nodded, trying as I did so to think of a tactful way to withdraw, when my eyes met his and suddenly I thought: Why not? I was slightly giddy with the force of his personality but the extremism of the offer was appealing as well. His students – if they were any mark of his tutelage – were imposing enough, and different as they all were they shared a certain coolness, a cruel, ma

This was all a long way from Piano, and my father's gas station. 'And if I do take classes with you, will they all be in Greek?' I asked him.

He laughed. 'Of course not. We'll be studying Dante, Virgil, all sorts of things. But I wouldn't advise you to go out and buy a copy of Goodbye, Columbus' (required, notoriously, in one of the freshman English classes) 'if you will forgive me for being vulgar.'

Georges Laforgue was disturbed when I told him what I pla

'He's a good teacher,' I said.

'No teacher is that good. And if you should by chance have a disagreement with him, or be treated unjustly in any way, there will be nothing anyone on the faculty can do for you. Pardon me, but I do not see the point of paying a thirty-thousand-dollar tuition simply to study with one instructor.'

I thought of referring that question to the Hampden College Endowment Fund, but I said nothing.

He leaned back in his chair. 'Forgive me, but I should think the elitist values of such a man would be repugnant to you,' he said. 'Frankly, this is the first time I have ever heard of his accepting a pupil who is on such considerable financial aid. Being a democratic institution, Hampden College is not founded on such principles.'

'Well, he can't be all that elitist if he accepted me,' I said.

He didn't catch my sarcasm. 'I am willing to speculate that he isn't aware you are on assistance,' he said seriously. £j 'Well, if he doesn't know,' I said, 'I'm not going to tell him.'

Julian's classes met in his office. They were very small classes, and besides, no classroom could have approached it in terms of comfort, or privacy. He had a theory that pupils learned better in a pleasant, non-scholastic atmosphere; and that luxurious hothouse of a room, flowers everywhere in the dead of winter, was some sort of Platonic microcosm of what he thought a schoolroom should be. ('Work?' he said to me once, astonished, when I referred to our classroom activities as such. 'Do you really think that what we do is work?'

'What else should I call it?'

'I should call it the most glorious kind of play.'

As I was on my way there for my first class, I saw Francis Abernathy stalking across the meadow like a black bird, his coat flapping dark and crowlike in the wind. He was preoccupied, smoking a cigarette, but the thought that he might see me filled me with an inexplicable anxiety. I ducked into a doorway and waited until he had passed.

When I turned on the landing of the Lyceum stairs, I was shocked to see him sitting in the windowsill. I glanced at him quickly, and then quickly away, and was about to walk into the hall when he said, 'Wait.' His voice was cool and Bostonian, almost British.

I turned around.

'Are you the new neanias T he said mockingly.

The new young man. I said that I was.

'Cubitum eamus?'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

He transferred the cigarette to his left hand and offered the right one to me. It was bony and soft-ski

He did not bother to introduce himself. After a brief, awkward silence, I told him my name.

He took a last drag of the cigarette and tossed it out the open window. 'I know who you are,' he said.

Henry and Bu

'… tasteless, that's what it is, old man. Disappointed in you.

I gave you credit for a little more savoir faire than that, if you don't mind my saying so…"

'Good morning,' said Francis, coming in behind me and closing the door.

Henry glanced up and nodded, then went back to his book.

'Hi,' said Bu

'Really?' said Francis.

Bu

'He was with me when I bought it,' said Henry without looking up from his book.

'How much are those things worth, anyway?' said Bu

No answer.

'Come on. How much? Three hundred bucks a pop?' He leaned all of his considerable weight against the table. 'I remember when you used to say how ugly they were. You used to say you'd never write with a thing in your life but a straight pen. Right?'

Silence.

'Let me see that again, will you?' Bu

Putting his book down, Henry reached in his breast pocket and pulled out the pen and put it on the table. 'There,' he said.

Bu

'It's like the fat pencils I used to use in first grade,' he said. 'Did Julian talk you into getting this?'

'I wanted a fountain pen.'

That's not why you got this one.'

'I am sick of talking about this.'

'I think it's tasteless.'

'You,' said Henry sharply, 'are not one to speak of taste.'

There was a long silence, during which Bu

'More or less.'

He pointed to me as if he were the host of a panel discussion on a talk show. 'And you, what's-your-name, Robert? What sort of pens did they teach you to use in California?'

'Ball points,' I said.

Bu

The door opened and the twins came in.

'What are you yelling about, Bun?' said Charles, laughing, kicking the door shut behind him. 'We heard you all the way down the hall.'

Bu

Uneasily, I edged into the corner and began to examine the books in the bookcase.

'How long have you studied the classics?' said a voice at my elbow. It was Henry, who had turned in his chair to look at me.

'Two years,' I said.

'What have you read in Greek?'

'The New Testament.'

'Well, of course you've read Koine,' he said crossly. 'What else?

Homer, surely. And the lyric poets.'

This, I knew, was Henry's special bailiwick. I was afraid to lie.

'A little.'

'And Plato?'

'Yes.'

'All of Plato?'

'Some of Plato.'

'But all of it in translation.'

I hesitated, a moment too long. He looked at me, incredulous. 'No?'

I dug my hands into the pockets of my new overcoat. 'Most of it,' I said, which was far from true.

'Most of what? The dialogues, you mean? What about later things? Plotinus?'