The Secret History Read Online Free PDF Page B

“There were kings of France named Pepin.”
    “Are you busy now?”
    “I am never too busy for an heir to the French throne if that is in fact what you are,” he said pleasantly.
    “I’m afraid not.”
    He laughed and quoted a little Greek epigram about honesty being a dangerous virtue, and, to my surprise, opened the door and ushered me in.
    It was a beautiful room, not an office at all, and much bigger than it looked from outside—airy and white, with a high ceiling and a breeze fluttering in the starched curtains. In the corner, near a low bookshelf, was a big round table littered with teapots and Greek books, and there were flowers everywhere, roses and carnations and anemones, on his desk, on the table, in the windowsills. The roses were especially fragrant; their smell hung rich and heavy in the air, mingled with the smell of bergamot, and black China tea, and a faint inky scent of camphor. Breathing deep, I felt intoxicated. Everywhere I looked was something beautiful—Oriental rugs, porcelains, tiny paintings like jewels—a dazzle of fractured color that struck me as if I had stepped into one of those little Byzantine churches that are so plain on the outside; inside, the most paradisal painted eggshell of gilt and
tesserae
.
    He sat in an armchair by the window and motioned for me to sit, too. “I suppose you’ve come about the Greek class,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    His eyes were kind, frank, more gray than blue. “It’s rather late in the term,” he said.
    “I’d like to study it again. It seems a shame to drop it after two years.”
    He arched his eyebrows—deep, mischievous—and looked at his folded hands for a moment. “I’m told you’re from California.”
    “Yes, I am,” I said, rather startled. Who had told him that?
    “I don’t know many people from the West,” he said. “I don’t know if I would like it there.” He paused, looking pensive and vaguely troubled. “And what do you do in California?”
    I gave him the spiel. Orange groves, failed movie stars, lamplit cocktail hours by the swimming pool, cigarettes, ennui. He listened, his eyes fixed on mine, apparently entranced by these fraudulent recollections. Never had my efforts met with suchattentiveness, such keen solicitude. He seemed so utterly enthralled that I was tempted to embroider a little more than perhaps was prudent.
    “How
thrilling,
” he said warmly when I, half-euphoric, was finally played out. “How very romantic.”
    “Well, we’re all quite used to it out there, you see,” I said, trying not to fidget, flushed with the brilliance of my success.
    “And what does a person with such a romantic temperament seek in the study of the classics?” he asked this as if, having had the good fortune to catch such a rare bird as myself, he was anxious to extract my opinion while I was still captive in his office.
    “If by romantic you mean solitary and introspective,” I said, “I think romantics are frequently the best classicists.”
    He laughed. “The great romantics are often failed classicists. But that’s beside the point, isn’t it? What do you think of Hampden? Are you happy here?”
    I provided an exegesis, not as brief as it might have been, of why at the moment I found the college satisfactory for my purposes.
    “Young people often find the country a bore,” said Julian.
    “Which is not to say that it isn’t good for them. Have you traveled much? Tell me what it was that attracted you to this place. I should think a young man such as yourself would be at a loss outside the city, but perhaps you feel tired of city life, is that so?”
    So skillfully and engagingly that I was quite disarmed, he led me deftly from topic to topic, and I am sure that in this talk, which seemed only a few minutes but was really much longer, he managed to extract everything about me he wanted to know. I did not suspect that his rapt interest might spring from anything less than the very richest enjoyment of my own