by Erich Segal
And yet, as freshman dorms were emptied—to make room for the ancient graduates of twenty-five years previous who would be living in them once again during Commencement Week—some members of The Class were leaving, never to return.
A tiny number had actually accomplished the impossible and flunked out. Some honestly conceded that they could not bear the prospect of more pressure from such unbelievably ambitious peers. And thus, capitulating to preserve their sanity, elected to transfer to universities near home.
Some went down fighting. And lost their minds in doing so. David Davidson (still in the hospital) was not the last. In fact, at Easter there had been a suicide compassionately misrepresented by the Crimson as an auto accident (although Bob Rutherford of San Antonio had actually been parked in his garage when death occurred).
And yet, as certain rugged members of The Class would argue, was this not something of a lesson to both the victims and the survivors? Would life at the very top be any easier than the self-inflicted torture chamber that was Harvard?
But the more sensitive of them recognized that they still had another three years to survive.
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
October 1, 1955
Last August when we were all up at the family house in Maine—where I spent most of the time getting to know my new stepmother and her kids—Father and I had our annual lakeside chat. First he congratulated me for squeaking by in all my courses. Indeed, the prospect of my actually staying in one school for four entire years now seemed to him a pleasant possibility.
Further in an educational vein, he expressed his determination that I should not suffer from the handicap of having been born rich. His message was that although he would gladly pay my tuition fees and board, he was stopping my pocket money for my own good.
Therefore, if I wished—as he hoped I did—to join a Final Club, to go cheer Harvard at football games, to take young eligible ladies to Locke-Ober’s, etc., I would have to seek gainful employment. All of this was, of course, to teach me Emersonian self-reliance. For which I thanked him politely.
Upon my return to Cambridge for sophomore year, I went straight to the Student Employment Center and found that the really lucrative jobs had already gone to scholarship students who needed the dough more than I. Thus, I could not have the enlightening experience of washing plates or dishing out mashed potatoes.
Just when things looked bleakest, however, I ran into Master Finley in the courtyard. When I told him why I was back so early, he commended my father’s desire to inculcate good Yankee values. Surprisingly, as if he had nothing better to do, he marched me straight to the Eliot House library, where he persuaded Ned Devlin, the head librarian, to sign me on as one of his assistants.
Anyway, I’ve got this really good deal. Three nights a week I get seventy-five cents an hour for just sitting at a desk from seven till midnight watching guys read books.
Actually, Master Finley must have known what he was doing, because the job is so undemanding that, for lack of something better to do, I study.
Once in a great while, a guy interrupts me to take out a book—so I rarely have to look up from the page—except if somebody’s talking too loud and I have to shut him up.
But last night was different. Something actually happened in the Eliot House library.
At about nine o’clock I lifted my eyes just to survey the scene. The place was dotted with studying preppies in their usual uniform, button-down shirts and chinos.
But at a table in the far corner I noticed something strange on the back of a well-built guy. It was, I thought, my own jacket. Or, more accurately, my own former jacket. Normally I wouldn’t know the difference, but this was a tweed job with leather buttons that my folks had brought me from Harrods in London. There weren’t many of those around.
Not that this in itself should be surprising. After all, I had sold it last spring to that famous used-clothes merchant, Joe Keezer. He’s a Harvard institution, and most of my friends, when in need of extra cash for such necessities as cars, liquor, and club dues, have flogged their fashionable rags to old Joe.
But I don’t know a single guy who ever bought from him. I mean, it doesn’t work that way. So, strictly in my professional capacity as librarian, I was confronted with a problem. For possibly, indeed quite probably, there was an infiltrator in the library disguised as a preppie.
The guy was good-looking—dark and handsome. But he was a little too kempt. I mean, although the room was kind of stuffy, not only did he keep the jacket on, but I could see he didn’t even open up his collar. Also, he seemed to be cramming like a demon. He was buried in his book, moving only now and then to check a dictionary.
Now, all of this is not against the law. And yet it’s not the norm for anyone I knew in Eliot House. And so I figured I had better keep my eyes on this possible interloper.
At eleven-forty-five, I usually start extinguishing lights to give the guys a hint that I am closing shop. By chance last night the library was already empty—except for this stranger in my former jacket. This gave me a chance to solve the mystery.
I casually approached his table, pointed toward the large lamp in the middle, and asked if he minded if I shut it off. He looked up, startled, and said, kind of apologetically, that he hadn’t realized it was closing time.
When I answered that by house rules he officially had fourteen minutes more, he got the message. He stood up and asked me how I’d guessed he wasn’t from Eliot. Was it something in his face?
I answered candidly that it was only something in his jacket.
This embarrassed him. As he started to examine it, I explained that it was a former possession of mine. Now I felt shitty for mentioning it, and quickly assured the guy that he could use the library anytime I was there.
I mean, he was at Harvard, wasn’t he?
Yeah. It turns out he’s a sophomore commuter. Named Ted Lambros.
On October 17, there was a small riot in Eliot House. More specifically, a demonstration against classical music. Still more specifically, a demonstration against Danny Rossi. To be extremely precise, the actual aggression was not against the man but his piano.
It all started when a couple of clubbies began an early cocktail party. Danny usually practiced at Paine Hall, except when he had exams or a paper due. Then he used the secondhand upright in his room.
He was at it hot and heavy that afternoon when some of the jolly tipplers decided that Chopin was not suitable background music for getting smashed. It was simply a matter of taste. And, of course, in Eliot House, taste was the supreme law. It was therefore decided that Rossi had to be silenced.
At first they tried diplomacy. Dickie Newall was dispatched to tap politely on Rossi’s portal and respectfully request that Danny “quit playing that shit.”
The pianist replied that house rules allowed him to practice a musical instrument in the afternoon. And he would stick to his rights. To which Newall responded that he didn’t give a flying fig for rules, and that Rossi was disturbing a serious symposium. Danny then asked him to go away. Which he did.
When Newall returned to report the failure of his mission, his co-imbibers decided that physical action was necessary.
Four of Eliot’s staunchest and drunkest legionnaires marched resolutely across the courtyard and up to Rossi’s room. They knocked politely on the door. He opened it slightly. Without another word, the commandos entered, surrounded the offending instrument, lugged it to the open window, and—hurled it out.
Danny’s piano fell three floors to the courtyard, smashing and disintegrating on the pavement below. Fortunately, no one was passing by at the time.
Rossi feared he’d be the next to be defenestrated. But Dickie Newall simply remarked, “Thanks for your cooperation, Dan.” And the band of merry men departed.
In a matter of seconds there was a crowd around the dismembered instrument. Danny was the first to arrive and reacted as though someone in his family had been murdered.
; (“Christ,” Newall reported, “I’ve never seen a guy get so upset about a piece of wood.”)
The perpetrators of the assault were immediately convoked in the senior tutor’s office, where Dr. Porter threatened them with expulsion and ordered them to pay for a new piano as well as for the broken window. Moreover, they were commanded to march over and apologize.
But Rossi was still in a fury. He told them they were a bunch of uncivilized animals who didn’t deserve to be at Harvard. Since Dr. Porter was right there, they grudgingly agreed with him. As they departed, the clubbies vowed revenge on the “little Italian wimp” who had caused them so much embarrassment.
That night at dinner, Andrew Eliot (who had been warming the varsity soccer bench during that afternoon’s debacle) saw Danny sitting all by himself at a corner table, picking at his food and looking really miserable. He walked over and sat down across the table.
“Hey, Rossi, I’m sorry to hear about your piano.”
Danny lifted his head. “Who the hell do they think they are?” he suddenly exploded.
“You want the truth?” Andrew asked. “They think they’re God’s gift to sophistication. But actually they’re just a bunch of empty-headed preppies who wouldn’t even be here if their parents hadn’t sent them to expensive schools. A guy like you makes them feel insecure.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Rossi. You’re what this place is all about. You’ve got one thing they can’t buy, and it galls the hell out of them. They’re jealous because you’ve got real talent.”
Danny was quiet for a moment. Then looked at Andrew and said softly, “You know, Eliot, you’re a really good guy.”
Ted could not concentrate on Helen of Troy. Not that Professor Whitman’s remarks about her appearance in Book Three of the Iliad were not fascinating. But Ted was distracted by something even more divine than the face that launched a thousand ships.
For more than a year now he had been staring at this girl. They had both started Ancient Greek together the previous fall, and Ted could still remember his first sight of her, as the soft morning sun shone through the windows of Sever Hall irradiating her amber hair and delicate features. She seemed like an image carved on an ivory brooch. The tasteful, unostentatious manner of her dress made him think of the nymph in Horace’s ode—simplex munditiis—embellished in simplicity.
He could recall the day—now thirteen months ago—when he had first noticed Sara Harrison. Professor Stewart had asked for someone to conjugate paideuo in the imperfect and first aorist, and she had volunteered. She had been sitting timidly by the window in the very last row—quite the opposite of Ted, who always sat front and center. Though she had been reciting correctly, her voice was so soft that Stewart had to ask her politely to speak louder. It was at this precise moment that Ted Lambros had turned his head and seen the girl.
From then on, he altered his seating position to the far right of the first row so that he could both gaze at Sara and still be conspicuously placed to gain academic points. He had a copy of the Radcliffe Register in his desk at home, and like a secret drunk he periodically indulged himself by taking it out and gazing at her picture. He also studied the meager information printed with it. She was from Greenwich, Connecticut, and had attended Miss Porter’s. She lived in Cabot Hall—in the unlikely event that he should ever get the courage to call her.
In fact, he wasn’t brave enough even to attempt small talk with her after class. He had gone through two terms like this, concentrating equally on the intricacies of the Greek verb and the delicacies of Sara’s face. But whereas he was aggressively bold when it came to answering grammatical questions, he was pathologically shy about saying anything to the angelic Sara Harrison.
But then, something unprecedented occurred. Sara was unable to answer a question.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Whitman, I just can’t get the hang of Homer’s hexameter.”
“You’ll catch on with a little practice,” the professor replied kindly. “Mr. Lambros, would you scan the line please.”
That is how it all began. For after class, Sara came up to Ted.
“Gosh, you scan so easily. Is there some secret to it?”
He barely had the courage to reply.
“I’d be glad to help you if you’d like.”
“Oh, thank you. I’d really appreciate that.”
“How about a cup of coffee at The Bick?”
“Great,” said Sara.
And they walked out of Sever Hall side by side.
Ted found her problem at once. She had neglected to take account of the digamma, a Greek letter that existed in Homer’s alphabet but which had since been dropped and was not printed in the text.
“You just have to imagine where a word might have an invisible w in front of it. Like oinos, which would become woinos, and would remind you more of ‘wine,’ which is what it actually means.”
“You know, Ted, you’re a terrific teacher.”
“It helps to be Greek,” he said with uncharacteristic shyness.
Two days later, Professor Whitman again called on Sara Harrison to scan a Homeric hexameter. She did it perfectly, and after doing so smiled gratefully across the room at her proud tutor.
“Thanks a million, Ted,” she whispered as they walked from class. “How can I repay you?”
“Well, you could join me for another cup of coffee.”
“With pleasure,” she replied. And her smile made him slightly weak at the knees.
From then on, their meetings after class became a ritual to which Ted looked forward like a pious monk anticipating matins. Of course the talk was general—mostly about their classes and especially Greek. Ted was too shy to make the slightest move that might change their relationship and lose this platonic ecstasy.
Still, they were helping each other with Whitman’s course. Ted was understandably stronger on the linguistic side, but Sara knew the secondary literature. She had read Milman Parry’s “L’epithète traditionnelle dans Homère” (which did not exist in English), and could give Ted a fuller comprehension of Homer’s formulaic style.
They both got A’s and moved triumphantly to Greek Lyric Poetry with Professor Havelock. But the subject matter only intensified Ted’s emotional state.
It began with the passionate verses of Sappho, which they took turns reading and translating as they sat across the scratched laminated table.
“ ‘There are those that say that the most beautiful thing on the dark earth is a multitude of horsemen’ ”
“ ‘Others say it is an armada of ships.’ ”
“ ‘But I say it is the one you love.’ ”
And so on all the way through Sappho Fragment 16.
“That’s fantastic, isn’t it, Ted?” exclaimed Sara. “I mean, the way a woman expresses her emotion by saying that it surpasses all things that are important in the world of men. It must have been pretty revolutionary stuff in those days.”
“What amazes me is how she can display her feelings without any embarrassment. That’s tough for anybody—man or woman.” He wondered if she sensed that he was also speaking of himself.
“More coffee?” he asked.
She nodded and rose. “It’s my round.”
As she started toward the counter, Ted thought fleetingly of asking her to have dinner some night. And then immediately lost heart. Besides, he was indentured to The Marathon from five till ten-thirty every day of the week. And he was certain she had a boyfriend. A girl like that could have her pick of anyone.
To welcome the arrival of spring, Professor Levine gave Ted’s Latin class an unscheduled reading of the glorious hymn Pervigilium Veneris. Though celebrating a new springtime for all lovers, it ends on a touching elegiac note. The poet laments:
Illa cantat, nos tacemus: quando ver venit meum?
Quando fiam uti chelidon ut tacere desinam?
Songbirds sing, must I be silent? When I pray will my spring come?
When will I be like the swallow, singing forth
no longer dumb?
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
November 4, 1955
Long before I came to Harvard I dreamed of being a chorus girl.
Not only is it a lot of laughs, but it’s also a great way to meet women.
For over a century now the Hasty Pudding Club has been producing an annual all-male musical comedy. The authors are usually the best wits in the college (that’s how Alan J. Lerner ’40 trained to write My Fair Lady).
But the show’s legendary status is not due to the quality of the script, but rather the quantity of the chorus line. For this unique corps de ballet is peopled by brawny preppie jocks in drag, kicking up their hairy muscular legs.
After its Cambridge run, this mindless and fairly gross extravaganza makes a brief tour of cities selected for the hospitality of their alumni and, most important, the nubility of their daughters.
I remember years ago, when my dad first took me to one of these productions, thinking the thundering hoof beats of the can can guys would quite literally bring down the house. They made that whole wooden building on Holyoke Street tremble.
This year’s production (the 108th) is called A Ball for Lady Godiva—which should give you some idea of the refined level of its humor.
Anyway, the first afternoon of tryouts looked like an elephants’ convention. I mean, some of the football players made a crewman like Wigglesworth seem sylphlike by comparison. There was no question that all these mastodons were dying to be one of Lady Godiva’s chambermaids—which is how they were going to dress this year’s Rockettes.
I knew the competition would be rough, so I worked out with weights (toe raises and squats) to beef up my leg muscles in hopes of getting them to look incongruous enough to make the grade.
We each got about a minute to sing something, but I think the whole issue was decided in the split second when we were asked to roll up our trousers.
They called us alphabetically, and, with knees knocking, I walked up on stage to sing a snatch of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” in my very lowest baritone.
