Erich Segal - The Class

“Each undergraduate receives one pound of meat a day,” John wrote. “But since it has no taste at all, one cannot tell what animal it comes from. Now and then there are some greens. On great occasions, dandelions. The butter is unspeakable and several times has been the cause of violent student demonstrations.

“At least we shall not die of thirst. For the supply of cider is unlimited. Each table has large pewter cans which we pass from mouth to mouth, just like the English wassail-bowl.”

Except for the presence of cider, this could well have been the description of an Eliot House dinner. Especially their table talk. There’s a certain eternal quality to undergraduate bullshit.

Not all was fun and games. As the situation with Britain deteriorated, the campus atmosphere grew tense. There were bloody fights between rebel and loyalist students. And then the war broke out.

In late 1773, just after the Boston Tea Party, there was a violent riot in the dining hall between patriots and Tories. No simple food fight, but a deadly battle. Tutors struggled to halt bloodshed.

One afternoon, I discovered something fascinating. I learned that the British army once intended to wipe Harvard College off the map.

“On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five,” as Professor Longfellow’s famous poem goes, Paul Revere galloped through the night to alert the citizens of Lexington and Concord that the redcoats were coming.

But another part of their forces was heading toward Cambridge. John Eliot’s diary of April 19 tells of the panic at Harvard. For it was well known that the English considered the college “a hotbed of sedition.”

Fearing that the enemy might arrive via the great bridge over the Charles River, a group of undergraduates dismantled it so that the British would be unable to cross. They then hid in the bushes to see what would happen.

Just after noon, a horde of troops appeared on the western bank led by Lord Percy himself, splendidly attired, mounted on a beautiful white horse.

When he saw what we — I mean the Harvard guys — had done to thwart him, he was pretty ticked off. But the canny British bastard had brought along some carpenters, who repaired the bridge in less than an hour.

They then marched straight through the center of the town, whose windows all were shuttered tight.

Percy was en route to reinforce the troops already out in Lexington. But he did not know the way. And so he headed for the most likely source of information-Harvard College. He led some of his men right into the center of the Yard and shouted at the seemingly deserted buildings for someone to come out immediately and give him directions.

No one ventured forth. Those undergraduates had guts.

John Eliot and his roommates were peering anxiously through the slats of his shutters, fearing Percy might order his troops to start shooting. And well he might, but first he tried a different ploy. He asked again — in Latin.

Then Tutor Isaac Smith suddenly appeared from Hollis Hall and approached the Englishman.

The students couldn’t hear them speak, but saw Smith motion toward Lexington. Percy waved, and all then galloped off.

Almost instantly the tutor was bombarded by shouts of, “grubstreet lobster-loving idiot.”

The man was quite bewildered. He was of that breed who can quote all of Cicero and Plato without book, yet can’t recall a student’s name.

He stuttered that the information had been requested in the king’s name. So how could he, as a loyal subject, have refused? He added that Lord Percy planned to honor Harvard with another visit.

The students were outraged. It seems the general had told Tutor Smith they’d have “a glass of good Madeira by the fire” later that night. The idiot didn’t realize that by “fire” the redcoat had meant conflagration. Some wanted to tar and feather this overeducated simpleton. But, typical of Harvard, everyone proposed a different course of action.

And while they were haranguing one another, Tutor Smith slipped quietly away. He was never seen again.

That evening Paul Revere rode into Cambridge with the awesome news of Lexington and Concord.

Some of the students joined the minutemen who had hastily built barricades on Cambridge Common, preparing for the British to attack.

They never came.

The Brookline militia, led by Isaac Gardner ’47, ambushed the approaching redcoats at Watson’s Corner. Though Isaac fell, his brave charge made the British scatter, thinking that the route to Cambridge teemed with patriots as fierce as he.

Thanks to men like him, there was no battle fought in Harvard Yard.

That steamy afternoon when I first read John Eliot’s words, I couldn’t help but wonder how we modern undergraduates would have responded if the university was under siege of arms. What would we do — hurl Frisbees at the enemy?

It was nearly five when I got back from “lunch.” I went straight to Mr. Winthrop to apologize. He looked up from his desk and said he hadn’t even noticed I was gone.

That is the story of my life.

When The Class of ’58 returned to Cambridge for their final year, they all were painfully aware that very little sand remained in the hourglass of their college lives. For in precisely nine months, they would be cast from the comfortable womb of Harvard into the cold, harsh world.

Everything seems to speed up at a frighteningly rapid pace. The seniors are like downhill skiers, some of whom are frightened by the gathering momentum and, although the end is manifestly near, still cannot keep their balance.

The Class had thus far had three suicides, all more or less precipitated by the pressures of trying to remain at Harvard. Now in this final year, two more of them would take their lives. But this time out of fear of leaving.

The final act is sad in other ways as well. The cynicism that is so endemic in the first three years turns slowly and surprisingly into nostalgia. Which by June creates an embryonic feeling of regret. Of wasted time. Of chances lost. Of carefree feelings none of them will ever know again.

There are exceptions. Those who can survive this senior crucible are usually the ones most likely to bring glory to The Class.

Not the least of them made his debut as piano soloist with the Boston Symphony on October 12, 1957.

Yet, the Danny Rossi who walked nervously to the keyboard in the crowded, venerable auditorium was different physically from the bespectacled young man who had left Eliot House the previous spring.

He was no longer wearing glasses.

Not that his vision had improved — although his appearance most dramatically had.

He owed his metamorphosis to the suggestion of an amorous admirer from last summer’s Tanglewood Festival staff. Seeing his face under circumstances when he did not need glasses to function, she remarked on the appeal of his piercing gray-green eyes — and what a pity it was that his spectacles hid them from the audience’s view, The next day he went out and was fitted for contact lenses.

The minute he appeared on stage of Symphony Hal! Danny could sense how right his inamorata’s advice had been. Amid the polite, friendly applause, he could perceive remarks like, “Oh, he’s cute.”

His performance was almost flawless. He was always passionate. And in the final movement some of his front locks fell across his forehead.

A standing ovation.

He had no notion of how long the public adoration lasted. In fact, Danny was swept up in its tidal wave and had lost all sense of time. He would have stayed on stage forever had not Munch, a friendly arm around his shoulder, led him to the wings.

Shortly after he got to his dressing room, his parents appeared. And, hard upon their heels, new planets that began to spin around the sun of Danny Rossi — journalists.