Erich Segal - The Class

“New Hampshire? Have you lost your mind? You mean from now on we’ll have to drive a hundred miles every time we want to make love?”

“No no no,” he protested. “Just till I can find a decent place. God, if ever I wished I lived in a House, it’s now. At least those guys can have women in their rooms in the afternoons.”

“Well, you don’t, and I’m stuck in a Radcliffe dorm that only lets men visit once in a blue moon …”

“Well, when’s the next blue moon?”

“Not till the last Sunday of next month.”

“Okay. We’ll wait till then.”

“And what are we supposed to do in the meantime — take cold showers?”

“I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry, Sara.”

“I don’t see why you’re not.”

In truth Ted could not explain the qualms he felt about the prospect of “going all the way” with her. He had grown up with the notion that love and sex were for two completely different kinds of women. While he and his buddies took swaggering pride in their exploits with girls who “went down,” none of them would ever have dreamed of marrying anyone who was not a virgin.

And though he dared not admit it even to himself, something subconscious in him wondered why a “nice” girl like Sara Harrison was so eager to make bye. And so he welcomed the delay till Visitors’ Sunday at her dorm. It would give him more time to reconcile the antitheses of sensuality and love.

Still there was a nagging question in the back of his mind and he searched for ways to broach it delicately.

Sara sensed that he was anxious about something.

“Hey, what’s eating you?”

“I don’t know. It’s just — I wish I’d been the first.”

“But you are, Ted. You’re the first man I’ve ever really loved.”

“Andrew — are you busy tonight?” Ted asked nervously. “I mean, could you spare me five minutes after the library closes?”

“Sure, Lambros. Want to go downstairs to the Grill for a couple of cheeseburgers?”

“Uh? Well, actually, I’d prefer someplace a little more private.”

“We could take the food up to my room.”

“That would he great. I’ve got something special to drink.”

“Ah, Lambros, that sounds really interesting.”

At a quarter past midnight, Andrew Eliot placed two cheeseburgers on the coffee table in his suite, and Ted produced a bottle from his bookbag.

“Have you ever tasted retsina?” he asked. “It’s the Greek national drink. I’ve brought you some as a kind of gift.”

“What for?”

Ted lowered his head and mumbled, “Actually, it’s sort of a bribe. I need a favor from, you, Andy, a really big favor.”

From the embarrassed look on his friend’s face, Andrew was sure he was about to be hit for a loan.

“I really don’t know how to say this,” Ted began, as Andrew poured the retsina.

“But whether you say yes or no, swear you’ll never tell a soul about this.”

“Sure sure, of course. Now spill — you’re giving me a heart attack from the tension.”

“Andy,” Ted started shyly, “I’m in love …”

He stopped again.

“Uh, congratulations,” Andrew responded, uncertain of what else to say.

“Thanks, but you see, that’s the problem.”

“I don’t get it, Lambros. What’s the problem?”

“Promise you won’t make any moral judgments?”

“Frankly, I don’t think I have any morals that I know of.”

“Listen, could I borrow your room a couple of afternoons a week?”

“That’s it? That’s what’s giving you a brain hemorrhage? When do you need it?”

“Well,” he replied, “house parietal rules let you have girls in the room between four and seven. Do you and your roommates need this place in the afternoons?”

“No sweat. Wigglesworth’s got crew and then eats at the Varsity Club, Ditto for Newall with tennis. I work out in the JAB. So that leaves you a clear field for whatever you’ve got in mind.”

Ted was suddenly beaming.

“God, Eliot, how can I ever thank you?”

“Well, the occasional bottle of retsina isn’t a bad idea. There’s only one thing — I’ll have to know this girl’s name so I can sign her in as my guest. It’ll be a little tricky at first, but the super’s a good guy.”

They established a system that would enable Ted and his inamorata (“an absolute goddess” named Sara Harrison) to enjoy the hospitality of Eliot House. All he had to do was give Andrew a few hours’ warning.

Ted was effusive with gratitude and floated out of the room as if on a cloud.

Andrew was left wondering, as that clever Yalie Cole Porter put it, “What is this thing called love?”

He sure as hell didn’t know.

The spring belonged to Jason Gilbert.

He finished his initial season of varsity squash undefeated. And Went straight on to unseat the current captain for the number-one singles slot on the tennis team. Here, too, he did not lose a match. He then crowned his sophomore achievements by winning both the IC4A and Eastern College titles.

These ultimate exploits made him the first member of The Class to have his picture on the sports page of the more widely circulated version of the Crimson , i.e., The New York Times .

If he had suffered any psychic damage from the unhappy experience with the Final Clubs, it was in no way apparent — at least to his athletic opponents.

In every American college there is always a figure known as the BMOC — “Big Man on Campus.” Harvard prided itself on not recognizing this as a valid designation.

Semantics notwithstanding, at this moment in the drama of undergraduate life, the undisputed hero — or in Shakespeare’s words “the observed of all observers” — was indisputably Jason Gilbert, Jr.

Danny Rossi’s esteem in the tiny music community could not counteract the chagrin he felt after the humiliating destruction of his piano. He hated Eliot House, and even at times began to resent Master Finley for bringing him to this den of obnoxious pseudo-sophisticates.

His disdain was reciprocated by most of the house members. And he ate almost every meal alone — except when Andrew Eliot would catch sight of him, sit down, and try to cheer him up.

Ted Lambros’s growing involvement with Sara demonstrated the validity of the platonic notion that love draws the mind to higher planes. He got straight A’s in all his classics courses. Moreover, he no longer felt himself a total alien from campus life. Perhaps because he was spending so many afternoons a week at Eliot House.

Andrew could only sit on the sidelines and marvel at how his classmates were developing. Petals were opening, blossoms emerging. Sophomore year was a glorious awakening for the entire Class.

It had been a time of hope. Of confidence. Of boundless optimism. Almost every member of The Class left Cambridge thinking, We’ve only half-begun.

When, in truth, it was half-over.

Danny Rossi’s second summer at Tanglewood had been even more memorable than his first. Whereas in 1955 his most exalted task was, as he himself put it with self-deprecating humor, “polishing Maestro Munch’s baton,” in 1956 he actually got to wave it in front of the orchestra.

The white-haired Frenchman had developed a grandfatherly affection for the eager little Californian. And, to the consternation of the other students at the Festival School, gave Danny every opportunity to make “real” music.

When Artur Rubinstein came up to play the Emperor Concerto , for example, Munch volunteered Danny to turn the virtuoso’s pages during rehearsal.

At the first break, Rubinstein, legendary for his prodigious musical, memory, bemusedly demanded to know why the conductor had stuck so familiar a score in front of his face. To which Munch replied with a sly grin that it was for the page turner’s benefit. So that Danny Rossi could study the master up close. “The boy is on fire,” he added.