Read Online Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux - Free Book Online

genteel
without affectation, and insinuating without design. Finally, they
were asked not to speak of themselves, for nothing could ever be
said to varnish one’s defects nor add luster to one’s virtues,
whereas, on the contrary, it would only make the former more
visible and the latter more obscure. She who lived upon talk would
die fasting. Good manners will minister to the shop, and the shop
will minister to thee. “Industry,” as Stonewall Jackson once
precociously lisped to his mother from his bassinet, “needs not
wish.”
      Quinsy College would not only endure, but prevail.
It had before in times of trial and would again. Its policies,
fashioned out of an impatience with this new age of permissiveness,
said it all, with this hope expressed, this continuity dearly
wished, that in such schools—with the laws of both discipline and
decorum meted out by the best teachers of
bienséance
—there
would surely be an eventual return to the good old American Way.
Had times changed? They had, yes, they had indeed, but if President
Greatracks himself, as he so often said, had to patrol the campus
by night in specially made sneakers snooping for socialists, so be
it! Had customs changed? They had, yes, but if one could no longer
catch a glimpse, as in days of yore, of Southern belles holding
parasols, wearing frilled bonnets, and tripping across lawns in
fragile blue-and-white prints with handkerchief-pointed tiers of
feminine chiffon and cascades of quivering ruffles, it didn’t
matter—they were still worshipfully kept alive in the rotogravure
section of every true Virginian’s heart. Had laxity set in? Yes,
yes, yes, laxity, slackness, looseness! It was the age. But if
ideals were honored more in the breach than in the observance
nowadays, it took nothing more than a quick look up at the college
rotunda to have one’s faith restored, for there the flag still
flew. The
American
flag, sir!
      The flag, indeed, still flew. And yet a paradox
presented itself, for the democracy which that flag represented was
somehow the same democracy that the admission board, the
administration, and the alumni were under jurisdiction, sometimes,
in fact, by federal writ, to oblige—resulting in a perceptible
latitudinarianism which included, among other things, extended
curfews, widening of student privileges, faculty raises, the
lowering of entrance requirements (two new highrise dorms had to be
filled) and now a consideration for the actual admission of
black
students!
      The South was trying to rise again. But where was
the yeast? “Freedom,” as President Greatracks had said on many
occasions, “is all very well and good, but—”
     
     
     
     
      VIII
     
      Hypsipyle Poore
     
     
      Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
      Dark Angel! triumph over me:
      Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
      Divine, to the Divinity.
            —LIONEL JOHNSON,
“The Dark Angel”
     
     
      “I
NEED
IT’!”
      “That’s a lot of pudding, miss.”
      “I’m signing up, anyway.”
      “The course, I told you yesterday, is
not
open to seniors,” exclaimed Mrs. McAwaddle, the registrar, her
mouth cemented shut against the possibility of further
discourse.
      “My daddy,” the girl drawled, charging through in
interruption and waving a slip of paper, “had the dean on the
telephone last night. Now, y’all want to read this?”
      The student, obviously used to exacting compliance,
was an arresting young beauty in sunglasses with a soft pink
sweater, raven-black hair cut to perfection, and a pout of wet
lipstick that made her mouth look like a piece of candy. She
stepped back, unvanquished, and seemed satisfied to wait, speaking
to no one but admiring from a corner the indisposition of the other
girls there who were trying to arrange their schedules during the
first discouraging days of registration. They shuffled about in
determined little squads with drop/add cards, course syllabi, and
countless