Erich Segal - The Class

Ted had to meet the author of Howl , the radical ululation in verse that had generated so much literary controversy in his undergraduate days. As he approached, he heard Ginsberg describing some personal apocalyptic experience.

“Looking through the window at the sky, suddenly it seemed that I saw into the depths of the universe. The sky suddenly seemed very ancient . And this was the very ancient place that Blake was talking about, the sweet golden clime. I suddenly realized that this existence was it ! Do you dig me, Sara?”

“Hi, honey,” Ted smiled, “hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Not at all,” she answered and then introduced her husband to the bearded bard.

“Say, I hear you guys may be moving west,” said Ginsberg, “I hope you do — the sense of prana ’s real strong out here.”

Just then they were interrupted by Bill Foster.

“Sorry to break in, Allen, but Dean Rothschmidt is desperate to have a few words with Ted before he goes.”

“That’s cool. I’ll be glad to continue fascinating Ted’s old lady.”

The Dean of Humanities wanted to express his admiration of Ted’s lecture and ask if he could drop by his office at ten the next morning.

As Ted was returning to Sara, Cameron Wylie cornered him.

“I must say, Professor Lambros, your lecture was absolutely first-rate. I look forward to reading it in print. And I do hope we’ll have the pleasure of hearing you at Oxford sometime.”

“That would be a great honor,” Ted replied.

“Well, when you get your next sabbatical I’ll be happy to make some arrangements. In any case, I do hope we’ll stay in touch.”

A bolt suddenly struck the lightning rod of Ted’s ambition.

Two days earlier, Cameron Wylie had spoken highly of his Sophocles book. This evening he was admiring the talk he had just delivered. Might not a letter from the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, repeating those same sentiments, tip the precarious balance at Harvard in Ted’s favor?

In any case, he could lose nothing by seizing this most propitious moment.

“Professor Wylie, I — uh — I was wondering if I could ask you a rather special favor….”

“Certainly,” the don answered amiably.

“I — uh — I’ll be coming up for tenure at Harvard next year, and I was wondering if you’d be willing to write on my behalf.”

“Well, I’ve already composed rather a panegyric for the Berkeley people. I wouldn’t mind saying the same sort of thing to Harvard. I won’t ask why you would choose to endure the cold Cambridge winters. In any case, it’s past my bedtime and I must be off. Please say good night to Sara for me. She’s chatting with a rather hirsute character and I wouldn’t want to catch his fleas.”

He turned and marched off.

Ted smiled with elation. Within his chest the fires of aspiration burned brightly.

“You were fantastic, Ted. This was the proudest day of my life. You snowed everybody.”

As they headed toward their room at the Faculty Club, Ted could hardly wait to tell her his good news. “Even old Cameron Wylie seemed pretty impressed,” he remarked casually.

“I know. I overheard him telling two or three people.”

He closed the door behind them and leaned against it. “Hey, Mrs. Lambros, what if I told you that we might not have to leave Cambridge?”

“I don’t get it,” Sara answered, a little off balance.

“Listen,” Ted confided with intensity, “Wylie’s going to write to Harvard for me. Don’t you think a letter from him would boost me up into tenure heaven?”

Sara hesitated. She had been so elated this evening, so enchanted by the whole Berkeley experience, that this “good” news actually came as a disappointment. A double disappointment, in fact. Because in her heart she sensed that Harvard had already made up its mind and nothing could change it.

“Ted,” she replied with difficulty, “I don’t know how to say this without hurting your feelings. But all Wylie’s letter can do is say you’re a good scholar and a great teacher.”

“Well, Jesus, isn’t that all there is to it? I mean, I don’t also have to run a four-minute mile, do I?”

Sara sighed. “Hey look, they don’t need a letter from Oxford to tell them what they already know. Face it, they’re not just judging you as a scholar. They’re voting to let you into their club for the next thirty-five years.”

“Are you trying to suggest they don’t like me?”

“Oh, they like you all right. The question is, do they like you enough ?”

“Shit,” Ted said, half to himself, his euphoria suddenly tumbling into an abyss of desperation. “Now I don’t know what the hell to do.”

Sara put her arms around him. “Ted, if it’ll help any in this existential dilemma, I want you to know that you’ve always got tenure with me.”

They kissed.

“Ted,” Dean Rothschmidt began the next morning, “Berkeley’s got a tenured slot in Greek Lit. and you’re our unanimous first choice. We’d be willing to start you at ten thousand a year.”

Ted wondered if Rothschmidt knew that he was offering him nearly three thousand more than he was currently earning at Harvard. On second thought, of course he did. And that was enough to buy a hell of a nice new car.

“And naturally we’d pay all your moving costs from the East,” Bill Foster quickly added.

“I — I’m very flattered,” Ted replied.

The pitch was not over. Rothschmidt had further blandishment. “I don’t know if Sara will recall, with all that madness at Bill’s last night, but the gray-haired gentleman she spoke with briefly was Jed Roper, head of the U.C. Press. He’s prepared to offer her a junior editorship — salary to be negotiated.”

“Gosh,” Ted remarked, “she’ll be thrilled.” And then he added as casually as possible, “I assume I’ll be getting a formal offer in writing.”

“Naturally,” the dean replied, “but it’s just a bureaucratic formality. I can promise you this is a firm offer.”

This time he took Whitman to lunch at the Faculty Club.

“Cedric, if there still is any enthusiasm for my being kept at Harvard, I think I’ve got some new ammunition.”

His mentor seemed pleased at what Ted reported. “Well, I think this strengthens your case considerably. I’ll ask the chairman to call Wylie for his letter so we can bring up your tenure at the next departmental meeting.”

My tenure, thought Ted. I actually heard him say my tenure.

The formal vote took place twenty-four days later. The department had for their consideration Ted’s bibliography (four articles, five reviews), his book on Sophocles (and the critiques of it, which ranged from “solid” to “monumental”), and various letters of recommendation, some from experts in the field whose names Ted would never know. But one certainly from the Regius Professor at Oxford.

Ted and Sara waited nervously in the Huron Avenue apartment. It was nail-biting time. They knew the meeting had begun at four, and yet by five-thirty there was still no word.

“What do you think?” Ted asked. “Is it a good sign or a bad sign?”

“For the last time, Lambros,” Sara said firmly, “I don’t know what the hell is going on. But you have my fervent conviction both as wife and classicist that you truly deserve tenure at Harvard.”

“If the gods are just,” he quickly added.

“Right.” She nodded. “But remember, in academia there are no gods — just professors. Quirky, flawed, capricious human beings.”

The phone rang.

Ted grabbed it.

It was Whitman. His voice betrayed nothing.

“Cedric, please, put me out of my misery. How did they vote?”