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visited Euston as a candidate did he make a secret of his natural Oxbridge-assisted superiority to these touching but hopelessly naive colonial morons.
    Bentham grabs the podium with both hands and leans down as if he means to kiss it, then straightens up, crackles a sheet of paper over his head, and says, “Dear friends and colleagues, I have here a copy of the Euston College policy on sexual harassment.” He smiles at this terribly amusing symptom of their hangover from Puritan repression, at the same time suggesting the slightly perverted headmaster who would cane them in a minute for the mildest infraction. “One receives this paper in one’s mailbox every September…along with updates on the health plan and cafeteria hours. All of which one tosses straightaway in the trash.”
    The faculty’s chuckles are guilty and pleased. How well Daddy knows them.
    â€œI know I throw it away, unread. Though it’s my unpleasant duty to write it. But the current zeitgeist is such that—one knows about the grotesqueries at State, there’s no need to add to the gossip—one has to understand that it’s a whole new…cricket match out there. So I thought we might spend a moment or two going over it together.”
    A faint groan goes up from the room, the faculty’s docile protest. Their dean lets them have their feelings, and then gets back to business.
    Sherrie whispers in Swenson’s ear, “This is so that if the college gets sued they can say they warned us.”
    Of course, it’s just like Sherrie to get it right the first time, without the pointless ruminations on British cultural imperialism and Puritan moral baggage. Sherrie knows it’s simpler, it’s about indemnification. The college’s fear of litigation is as intense as Jonathan Edwards’s terror of hellfire. One expensive lawsuit could push Euston—with its alarmingly tiny endowment—over the edge.
    â€œOne,” reads Francis Bentham in his ironic baritone. “No Euston College faculty member shall have sexual relations with a currently enrolled or former student, nor offer to trade sexual favors for academic advancement.”
    All right. They can agree to that, so long as it’s not retroactive. In the old days, undergraduate paramours were a perk that went with the job. But already Bentham has moved from these clear prohibitions—as simple and as hard to obey as the Ten Commandments—into the fuzzy area of the hostile workplace, the atmosphere of intimidation. No matter. Like Jonathan Edwards’s audience, Bentham’s listeners drift from the subject of mass retribution to the juicier topic of each one’s secret sin and its chance of being discovered.
    Puritanism’s alive and well. Thank God for repression. What if someone rose to say what so many of them are thinking, that there’s something erotic about the act of teaching, all that information streaming back and forth like some…bodily fluid. Doesn’t Genesis trace sex to that first bite of apple, not the fruit from just any tree, but the Tree of Knowledge?
    Teacher-student attraction is an occupational hazard. Over the years, plenty of girls have had crushes on Swenson. He’s not flattering himself about this. It’s built into the system. Still, their interest is flattering, which in itself is attractive, and so their attention was sometimes returned in ways that couldn’t have been more harmless. So what if he read Miss A.’s paper first, or looked to see if Miss B. got his joke? More often than not, those students worked harder and learned more. And those fleeting…attachments never led any further. Swenson should be canonized. He’s the saint of Euston!
    As hard as it might be for anyone, including himself, to believe, he’s taught here for twenty years and never once slept with a student. He loves Sherrie. He wants his marriage to last. He’s always