by Erich Segal
George Keller’s look of expectation turned to one of disappointment. “I’d be glad to pay you, Jason. Anything you say.”
“It isn’t the money. I’d teach you free—”
“When?” George quickly asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” said Jason, feeling cornered, “maybe sometime during Graduation Week.”
“Sunday the eighth—at five o’clock? I know there is nothing planned for then.” The guy knew the entire schedule by heart!
“Okay,” Jason capitulated with a sigh. “Do you have a racket?”
“Of course,” said George, “and I have balls.”
“I knew that without asking,” Jason murmured as he shut his door.
George Keller stood there beaming with satisfaction. The sarcasm had escaped even the magniloquent new master of the English language.
Andrew Eliot was already waiting outside the History Department when the General-Exam grades were posted. For one of the rare times of his life off the athletic field, he was perspiring.
A swarm of students rushed forward as the department secretary came out of the chairman’s office to pin the results on the bulletin board.
Fortunately, Andrew was tall enough to see over the heads of the mob. What he read astonished him. He walked numbly back to Eliot House and phoned his father.
“What in blazes is the matter, son? It’s still expensive-calling hours.”
“Dad,” Andrew mumbled in a haze, “Dad, I just wanted you to be the first to know …”
The young man hesitated.
“Come on, my boy, speak up. This is costing you a fortune.”
“Dad, you won’t believe this but—I passed my Generals. I’m going to graduate.”
The announcement at first struck Andrew’s father speechless.
Finally he said, “Son, that is good news. I frankly never thought you’d do it.”
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
June 10, 1958
As a kind of anodyne for the trauma of our symbolic rebirth, Harvard arranges a series of assorted ceremonies for Senior Week, culminating in Thursday morning’s sacred laying on of hands.
The Baccalaureate Service on Sunday in Memorial Church was a pretty desultory affair. At least, that’s what I heard from one of the guys who actually went. It wasn’t exactly a big draw.
Monday’s formal dance—for some reason called the Senior Spread—was much better attended. About half The Class filled the Lowell House courtyard, clad in rented white dinner jackets, dancing into the wee hours to the mellow saxophone sounds of Les and Larry Elgart’s orchestra.
I guess if it had an educational purpose, which I assume everything at Harvard does, it was to give us a preview of what it would be like to be middle-aged.
The band gave an occasional nod to musical modernity with one or two cha-cha-chas—the current terpsichorean vogue—and also some Elvis tunes. But it was soft and gentle stuff like “Love Me Tender.”
Oh yes, we did have dates. I blush to say that Newall and I had a social arrangement with Jason, somewhat analogous to my sartorial-exchange policy with Ted Lambros. We got his hand-me-downs.
But, of course, when you get an ex from Gilbert, they are still in exceptionally fine condition. As Joe Keezer might put it, “hardly worn.” The only problem is they still have this vestigial attachment to Jason.
The result being that while he was dancing with this incredible blonde (a tennis journalist he’d picked up at some tournament), Lucy, my so-called date, and Melissa, who was supposed to be with Newall, kept angling to stay in his line of vision in hopes they could scrounge a single dance with our Class Leader.
Needless to say, even with our own considerable charm, Dickie and I didn’t get to first base with either of our girls. But at least we had a lovely on our arms, which I suspect was the motivation for a lot of the pairings that evening. I think that Ted and Sara were among the maybe dozen or so couples who were actually involved romantically.
Tomorrow night we have yet another jolly event—for which Gilbert has already obtained me an escort—a moonlight cruise in Boston Harbor. Newall is going to pass on that one since, for some irrational reason, he’s afraid he might get seasick. And how would that look the next morning, when he’s due to be commissioned as a naval officer?
But as this artificial carnival continues, I keep wondering more and more why no one really seems to be enjoying it.
And I’ve come to what I think is a profound conclusion. The Class is really not a class. I mean, we’re not a brotherhood—or anything at all cohesive for that matter.
In fact, the time we spent here was a kind of truce. A cease-fire in the war for fame and power. And in two more days the guns come out again.
Though it had rained intermittently throughout the earlier part of Commencement Week, Harvard’s apparent connections in Very High Places succeeded in making Thursday, June 12, 1958, a hot and sunny day, perfect for the university’s 322d Commencement Ceremony.
Everyone seemed to be in costume. From the rented black caps and gowns of the undergraduates to the electric pink of the doctoral candidates. Or the eighteenth-century garb of the sheriff of Middlesex County, who rode in on horseback to open the proceedings.
Led by Jason Gilbert and the two other marshals, The Class of ’58 marched through the Yard, around University Hall, and into the vast area between Memorial Church and Widener Library. For a few hours every year, rows of wooden seats spring up and this sylvan space is magically transformed into “Tercentenary Theater.”
As had been the practice for three centuries, the solemnities began with an oration in Latin—which perhaps sixteen people understood and everybody else pretended to.
This year’s speaker, selected two weeks earlier by the Classics Department, was Theodore Lambros of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His speech was entitled “De optima genere felicitatis“—on the noblest form of happiness.
The Latin salutatorian’s task is, as the word suggests, to greet the dignitaries present in hierarchical order. First President Pusey, then the governor of Massachusetts, deans, pastors, and so forth.
But the crowd is really waiting for the traditional greetings to the Radcliffe girls (who, of course, come at the very end).
Nec vos ommittamus, puellae pulcherrimae Radcltiffiane, quas socias studemus vivendi, ridendi, bibendi.…
Nor shall we overlook you, Most exquisite Radcliffe maidens, Whom we zealously pursue as companions for Living, laughing, and quaffing.…
Twenty thousand pairs of hands applauded. But none more vigorously than those of the proud Lambros family.
After all the salutations, the orator is supposed to pronounce a small homily. And Ted had chosen as his message the fact that the highest form of happiness was to be found in truly unselfish friendship toward one’s fellow man.
It was not long thereafter that President Pusey bade The Class of ’58 rise to its feet and its representatives mount the steps of Memorial Church to join “the fellowship of educated men.”
First Marshal Jason Gilbert walked to the podium to accept the symbolic diploma for all of them.
Sitting near the stage in a section reserved for relatives of the participants, Jason’s father overheard a female voice exclaim, “He looks just like something out of Scott Fitzgerald.”
Mr. Gilbert turned to caution his wife not to speak so loudly. But in doing so, he realized that Betsy was crying and the compliment had been articulated by another woman sitting in their row. And he smiled and thought, There’s no prouder father in this whole damn place.
He was not correct, of course. There were nearly a thousand fathers of The Class of ’58 among those present, all of whom were sharing what they thought was the zenith of euphoria and pride.
Four years earlier, 1, 162 young men had entered Harvard with The Class of ’58. Today, 1,031 of them received diplomas. Just over ten percent had failed to stay the course. In ancient Roman terms, they had been decimated.
Some who had flun
ked out along the way might perhaps come back in a later year and finish their degrees. Still others had surrendered their ambition to be Harvard men either by giving up their sanity or taking their own lives. But no one thought of them today, for this was a time for congratulation, not compassion.
Not even Jason gave a thought to David Davidson, his freshman roommate, who was still resident in Massachusetts Mental Hospital, undaunted by his temporary setback, still dreaming of future scientific glory.
Half an hour later, The Class broke into smaller groups to have luncheon in their houses.
Back at Eliot, Art and Gisela Rossi’s meal with Danny would be simultaneously a farewell. For he’d be leaving the next morning to return to Tanglewood—as soloist this summer. And after that to Europe to begin the concert tour that Hurok had arranged.
His mother couldn’t keep from asking why Maria was not there. For she had really liked the girl.
Art Rossi was more understanding. “Come on, honey,” he whispered, “she was probably just a passing fancy. Dan’s too young and clever to let himself get hooked so soon.”
Danny kept up the charade and smiled. Though inwardly he was aggrieved that when he’d asked her to be his date “just for old times’ sake,” Maria had declined.
George Keller had resigned himself to eating lunch alone on a courtyard step. Clearly, no one near and dear to him was that day present. Then Andrew Eliot approached him. “Hey, George,” he said good-naturedly, “do me a favor, huh? Come on over to our table and talk to some of my stepsisters. I mean, I can’t remember half their names but some of them are cute.”
“Thank you, Andrew, that is most cordial. I’d be ravished to join you.”
As George rose to walk to the Eliot family table in the courtyard of the house called Eliot, with his classmate Andrew of that same name, the latter whispered to him, “George, your English is terrific. But don’t say ‘ravished.’ Say my sister—any one of them—is ravishing.”
Later in the afternoon, the separation was complete. They now divided into a thousand atoms, going off at varied speeds in differing directions.
Would they ever come together as a unity again?
Had they ever been one?
REAL LIFE
Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
T.S. ELIOT ’10
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
June 14, 1958
Ted and Sara got married today. I was best man—probably on the grounds that I had been their landlord for so long. (“If this were the Middle Ages, you’d be entitled to droit du seigneur,” Sara joked.)
It was a simple affair for complex reasons. To begin with, Sara was Episcopal and Ted, of course, Greek Orthodox. Not that the Lambros family was making any sacramental demands, mind you. But Daisy Harrison seemed to have thought it best to have the ceremony on more or less neutral grounds: in Appleton Chapel, at the back of Mem. Church, under the aegis of the distinguished George Lyman Buttrick, Preacher to the University.
This, as I interpreted Daisy’s strategy, solved a multitude of problems while preserving at least a shimmer of class.
Naturally she had always dreamed of marrying off her only daughter in Christ Church, Greenwich, that extraordinarily imposing sanctuary built to the glory of God—with considerable help from some local worshippers of Mammon.
But two things had precluded this pomp and ceremony. For one, she was not all that eager to parade her in-laws before le tout Greenwich. For another, Sara said she would get married there only over her dead body (which would take some of the joy out of the occasion).
Thus, it boiled down to the intimacy—but unmistakable patina—of Harvard’s chapel, the exquisite singing of the University Choir, and, perhaps most important, a short guest list, almost exclusively students.
Let posterity record that I did not forget the ring. In fact I guarded it with my life during the twenty-four hours it was in my possession, since it was a Lambros family heirloom from the Old Country.
I stood in a unique position, able to watch both participants and audience, and thus could note the more intense pockets of emotion. It came as no surprise that Mrs. Lambros did most of the crying. And of Sara’s entire family, only one person had difficulty holding back the tears. Phil Harrison himself.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected Sara’s mother to be sentimental. And she wasn’t. In fact, she sort of acted as if Ted’s family were merely poor relatives one simply had to invite. I heard her remark to Mrs. Lambros, “I hope you appreciate that your son is marrying into one of the oldest families in America.”
Daphne translated this to her mother and then gave Mrs. Harrison the response, “Mama says you carry your age very well.”
Something may have been lost in translation, but it certainly wasn’t love.
For the reception Daisy hired an opulent suite at The Ritz. To add to the ecumenical nature of the occasion, the sparkle she chose was Dom Pérignon, a sort of homage to the Catholic inventor of champagne. Anyway, the blessed bubbles from Dom’s discovery filled every glass, and quite soon every head.
I think Mrs. Harrison was surprised by several things that afternoon. The first was that the whole Lambros family came attired in recognizably Western garb (a great deal of it Brooks Brothers via Joe Keezer). According to Sara, she had expected them to show in babushkas, or whatever Greek peasants wear.
Secondly, the grossest behavior of the occasion was, hands down, that of her own elder sons. For Phippie and Ev rather recklessly thought they would take on the mighty imbibers of Eliot House in a sport of which we are clearly the masters.
They found, to their chagrin (and no doubt subsequent headaches), that there is not enough champagne in France, much less Boston, to bring a hollow-legged drinker like Newall to his knees. Even Jason Gilbert, who is always in training, is a veritable sponge when it comes to champers.
Anyway, feeling that my obligations as best man superseded even the rare opportunity of unlimited vintage quaffing, I remained (relatively) sober so I could dislodge my duties to the very end.
This gave me a chance to chat with Old Man Harrison, who, by happy coincidence, was celebrating his Twenty-fifth Harvard Reunion concurrent with our commencement. He said he’d found the whole occasion deeply moving.
I mean, I personally found it impossible even to think of where I might be twenty-five years from now. I’m still confused from one day to the next about what I want to do with my life.
No one knew where they were honeymooning. Except me, of course. For, despite their protestations, I had insisted that the newlyweds take advantage of our family’s empty summer house up in Maine. It gave me pleasure to know the place would be used for such a worthwhile purpose.
It would be misleading to assume that I’m always on the giving end with Lambros. In fact, when Sara’s bouquet was caught by her cousin Kit from Chicago, she called out to me to take care of her.
I got the message, and happily entertained her for the next few days. And nights.
Weddings do that sort of thing to you.
Danny Rossi could never have imagined that his childhood bouts of asthma would ultimately serve a useful purpose in his musical career.
For while most of his Harvard classmates who did not have student deferments were marching and saluting in fulfillment of their military obligations, he had been declared 4-F. And was therefore free to roam the world and be saluted as a rising star.
At a first glance it might have appeared that Hurok had merely booked his young discovery indiscriminately—one might almost say promiscuously—with any orchestra he could. But the veteran concert manager had a very well-thought-out master plan.
He wanted to expose Danny to demanding conductors, sophisticated audiences. To become inured to harsh, critical scrutiny. In short, polish his musical techniques while hardening his psyche.
What the old man didn’t realize was that Danny was also a virtuoso with reporters. His press was uniformly favorable.
/> He captured London playing Brahms with Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic, then flew on to Amsterdam for Mozart with Haitink and the Concertgebouw.
Paris was next, with a solo concert at the Salle Pleyel (Bach, Chopin, plus Couperin and Debussy to please the locals). In Le Figaro’s opinion Rossi was “un nouveau Liszt en miniature”; Le Monde had a similar opinion if a different metaphor: “pas seulement un géant pour son âge mais un géant de son âge.”
On the evening after Danny’s last appearance in Berlin, von Karajan arranged a midnight supper at the Kempinski with the director-general of Deutsche Grammophon Records. The next morning Danny had a five-album contract.
“Well,” said the young pianist as he sat proudly in Hurok’s portrait-laden office, observing the impresario leaf through his folder of reviews. “What do you think?”
The old man raised his glance and smiled. “What I think, my boy, is that you have just done New Haven.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you not familiar with the theatrical expression? Whenever a producer wants to open a show in New York, he always tries it out first in a small place like New Haven.”
“Are you suggesting that London, Amsterdam, and Paris are ‘try-out towns’?”
“I am indeed,” Hurok said without blinking. “For New York, every other city on earth is New Haven. When you make it here you’ve really made it.”
“When do you think I’ll finally be ready for the ‘Big Time’?”
“I’ll be glad to let you know exactly,” the concert manager answered, casually reaching for a document that lay upon his antique desk. “February 15, 1961, with Lenny and the Philharmonic. He suggests you play one of the Beethovens.”
“That’s another whole year. What do I do till then—besides bite all my nails off?”