Erich Segal - The Class

Or perhaps the guilt that had inspired George’s self-induced chastity — a kind of subliminal penance — had been absolved by time.

In early August he went to bed with one of Poland’s leading journalists. She was nearly forty and a woman of the world. Her comments on George’s amorous technique, therefore, carried substantial weight.

“Young man,” she whispered, “you are the most expert lover I have ever known —”

George smiled.

“ — And the coldest,” she quickly added. “You do everything as if you have learned it from a textbook.”

“Do you doubt my sincerity?” he asked good-humoredly.

“Of course not,” she replied with a sly smile. “I never for a minute believed that you had any. You are their spy, yes?”

“Of course.” George grinned. “The director wants me to find out which delegate is the best in bed.”

“And?” she inquired saucily.

“If they ever give a Lenin Prize for sex, you would win hands down.”.

“Ah, George,” she cooed, “you talk as elegantly as you screw. You have a great future ahead of you.”

“In what field do you think?” he asked, genuinely eager to learn how such a woman of the world viewed him.

“It’s obvious,” she replied. “There is one profession which needs an equal quantity of your two best talents. I mean, of course, politics.”

And she pulled him to her to engage once again in the dialectic of Eros.

Jason Gilbert’s march to sporting glory went on unimpeded. He had won the IC4A Tennis Title for the second straight year. And, as if that were not sufficient kudos, his teammates demonstrated the exceptional esteem in which they held him by voting him their captain — as they already had for squash.

Though normally not vindictive, he could not keep himself from sending to his Old Blue headmaster, Mr. Trumbull, the lengthy Crimson article that assessed his extraordinary number of sporting achievements to date. And, as the encomium concluded, “Who can dare to speculate what further heights Gilbert will reach with yet another year to go?”

Ted and Sara’s love had grown to such intensity that the mere notion of having to spend two months apart became an intolerable prospect. She therefore persuaded her parents to allow her to attend Harvard Summer School and sublet a flat in North Cambridge. Sara’s mother was more than slightly dubious about her daughter’s sudden passion to take on yet more academic work. But her father, to whom she could confide the fact that mother’s suspicions were in fact correct, was generous in his support and helped her win the day.

It was a long and passionate summer (during which they even made love one starry night in Harvard Yard itself, in the quadrangle behind Sever Hall). Parting on Labor Day was a painful wrench. Sara cried the entire week before they had to give up the apartment.

For Danny Rossi, the summer of ’57 was a kind of overture to the highest point yet in his musical career.

Munch had booked him to perform with the Boston Symphony on October 12, when he would play Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Those trills in the opening movement would have reverberations around the musical world. When he jubilantly called Dr. Landau to tell him the news, he was thrilled to hear that his teacher had been saving money for the plane fare and intended to be present at the concert.

Still, Danny’s imminent debut offered far less joy than he had always dreamed it would. For his junior year had taken from him more than it had bestowed. The humiliation of the Crimson ’s pan for his ballet still haunted him. And then there was the tortured relationship with Maria.

He had hoped their separation through the summer would allow him time to clarify his thoughts and possibly to seduce a few girls at Tanglewood to fortify his masculine self-image. But a sudden tragedy cast a huge pall on everything.

The very night he arrived at Tanglewood, his mother called to tell him that Dr. Landau had suffered a fatal heart attack. In a haze of grief, Danny packed and flew out for his teacher’s funeral. At the graveside he cried unashamedly.

When, after the brief service the mourners started to disperse, his mother, whom he had not seen in three long years, implored him to come home. She told Danny it was Dr. Landau’s final wish that he be reconciled with his father.

And so the prodigal son returned at last to the house where he had spent such a miserable adolescence.

Arthur Rossi seemed to have changed both inwardly and outwardly. He was subdued now. There were furrows in his face, and he was completely gray at the temples.

For a fugitive instant, Danny felt a pang of remorse. As if his father’s outward signs of physical decline had somehow been his fault.

But as they stood there facing each other wordlessly for those first awkward moments, Danny forced himself to remember how callously this man had treated him. But he could no longer find it in himself to hate his father. Still, he could not love him, either.

“You’re looking well, son.”

“You too, Dad.”

“It — it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

That was the full extent of what he could say. Danny’s long-cherished fantasy of a paternal apology was just that — a figment of his own childish desires.

Thus, with a quiet magnanimity born of grief and newly found indifference, Danny offered his hand to signal that their quarrel was finally at an end. The two even embraced.

“I’m really glad, son,” Arthur Rossi murmured. “Now we can all let bygones be bygones.”

Yeah, thought Danny, what the hell. It’s so unimportant now. The only man who ever acted like a real father to me is dead.

All summer I had one foot in the future and the other in the past (don’t ask me which I like better).

Since — with any luck — I’ll be graduating next June, Father thought it best that I forgo the usual physical labor this year. And instead begin to get acquainted with the family banking business.

Naturally he was in Maine, running things by phone. So he put me into the charge of “good old Johnny Winthrop,” an officer quite accurately described by both those adjectives.

“Just keep your eyes and ears open, lad,” he explained at the beginning of my very first day. “Watch when I buy, watch when I sell, watch when I hold. You’ll quickly get the knack of it. Now why don’t you get us both a nice cup of tea?”

Our offices in downtown Boston are just a short walk across the Common from the Historical Society. This is where I did my real learning, as I delved into the diaries of the Reverend Andrew Eliot, Class of 1737, and his son, John, 1772.

They gave me a real sense of our country’s (and my family’s) history. And also that, give or take a few improvements in the plumbing, Harvard life seems to have been the same since the beginning.

I photostated some juicy tidbits from John Eliot’s freshman diary.

Item . September 2, 1768. John leaves for college. Packs his vital gear. Required blue coat, three-cornered hat, and gown. Also fork, spoon, and chamberpot (freshmen had to bring their own).

Item . Dad insists he take Charlestown ferry. Cheapest way. And — most important — Harvard gets the proceeds.

Item . Tuition can be paid in kind, e.g., potatoes or firewood. One guy brought a sheep.

Item . College punch called “flip.” Two-thirds beer, molasses, spiked with rum. Served in huge, tall mugs (called “bumpers”).

Item . September 6, 1768. Describes wretched food in Commons.