The Secret History - Donna Tartt [6]
“Why?”
“He is a wealthy man. He donates his salary to the college, though he accepts, I think, one dollar a year for tax purposes.”
“Oh,” I said. Even though I had been at Hampden only a few days, I was already accustomed to the official accounts of financial hardship, of limited endowment, of corners cut.
“Now me,” said Laforgue, “I like to teach well enough, but I have a wife and a daughter in school in France—the money comes in handy, yes?”
“Maybe I’ll talk to him anyway.”
Laforgue shrugged. “You can try. But I advise you not to make an appointment, or probably he will not see you. His name is Julian Morrow.”
I had not been particularly bent on taking Greek, but what Laforgue said intrigued me. I went downstairs and walked into the first office I saw. A thin, sour-looking woman with tired blond hair was sitting at the desk in the front room, eating a sandwich.
“It’s my lunch hour,” she said. “Come back at two.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just looking for a teacher’s office.”
“Well, I’m the registrar, not the switchboard. But I might know. Who is it?”
“Julian Morrow.”
“Oh, him,” she said, surprised. “What do you want with him? He’s upstairs, I think, in the Lyceum.”
“What room?”
“Only teacher up there. Likes his peace and quiet. You’ll find him.”
Actually, finding the Lyceum wasn’t easy at all. It was a small building on the edge of campus, old and covered with ivy in such a manner as to be almost indistinguishable from its landscape. Downstairs were lecture halls and classrooms, all of them empty, with clean blackboards and freshly waxed floors. I wandered around helplessly until finally I noticed the staircase—small and badly lit—in the far corner of the building.
Once at the top I found myself in a long, deserted hallway. Enjoying the noise of my shoes on the linoleum, I walked along briskly, looking at the closed doors for numbers or names until I came to one that had a brass card holder and, within it, an engraved card that read JULIAN MORROW. I stood there for a moment and then I knocked, three short raps.
A minute or so passed, and another, and then the white door opened just a crack. A face looked out at me. It was a small, wise face, as alert and poised as a question; and though certain features of it were suggestive of youth—the elfin upsweep of the eyebrows, the deft lines of nose and jaw and mouth—it was by no means a young face, and the hair was snow white.
I stood there for a moment as he blinked at me.
“How may I help you?” The voice was reasonable and kind, in the way that pleasant adults sometimes have with children.
“I—well, my name is Richard Papen—”
He put his head to the side and blinked again, bright-eyed, amiable as a sparrow.
“—and I want to take your class in ancient Greek.”
His face fell. “Oh. I’m sorry.” His tone of voice, incredibly enough, seemed to suggest that he really was sorry, sorrier than I was. “I can’t think of anything I’d like better, but I’m afraid there isn’t any room. My class is already filled.”
Something about this apparently sincere regret gave me courage. “Surely there must be some way,” I said. “One extra student—”
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Papen,” he said, almost as if he were consoling me on the death of a beloved friend, trying to make me understand that he was powerless to help me in any substantial way. “But I have limited myself to five students and I cannot even think of adding another.”
“Five students is not very many.”
He shook his head quickly, eyes shut, as if entreaty were more than he could bear.
“Really, I’d love to have you, but I mustn’t even consider it,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry. Will you excuse me now? I have a student with me.”
More than a week went by. I started my