39
Gant and Eliza came to his graduation.
He found them lodgings in the town: it was early June — hot, green, fiercely and voluptuously Southern.
The campus was a green oven; the old grads went about in greasy pairs; the cool pretty girls, who never sweated, came in to see their young men graduate, and to dance; the mamas and papas were shown about dumbly and shyly.
The college was charming, half-deserted.
Most of the students, except the graduating class, had departed.
The air was charged with the fresh sensual heat, the deep green shimmer of heavy leafage, a thousand spermy earth and flower-scents.
The young men were touched with sadness, with groping excitement, with glory.
On this rich stage, Gant, who had left his charnel-house of death for three days, saw his son Eugene.
He came, gathered to life again, out of his grave.
He saw his son enthroned in all the florid sentiment of commencement, and the whole of his heart was lifted out of the dust.
Upon the lordly sward, shaded by great trees, and ringed by his solemn classmen and their families, Eugene read the Class Poem (“O Mother Of Our Myriad Hopes”).
Then Vergil Weldon spoke, high-husky, deep, and solemn-sad; and Living Truth welled in their hearts.
It was a Great Utterance.
Be true!
Be clean!
Be good!
Be men!
Absorb the Negation!
The world has need of.
Life was never so worth.
Never in history had there been.
No other class had shown so great a promise as.
Among other achievements, the editor of the paper had lifted the moral and intellectual level of the State two inches.
The university spirit!
Character!
Service!
Leadership!
Eugene’s face grew dark with pride and joy there in the lovely wilderness.
He could not speak.
There was a glory in the world: life was panting for his embrace.
Eliza and Gant listened attentively to all the songs and speeches.
Their son was a great man on the campus.
They saw and heard him before his class, on the campus, and at graduation, when his prizes and honors were announced.
And his teachers and companions spoke to them about him, and said he would have “a brilliant career.”
And Eliza and Gant were touched a little by the false golden glow of youth.
They believed for a moment that all things were possible.
“Well, son,” said Gant, “the rest is up to you now.
I believe you’re going to make a name for yourself.”
He laid a great dry hand clumsily upon his son’s shoulder, and for a moment Eugene saw in the dead eyes the old dark of umber and unfound desire.
“Hm!” Eliza began, with a tremulous bantering smile, “your head will get turned by all the things they’re saying about you.”
She took his hand in her rough warm grasp.
Her eyes grew suddenly wet.
“Well, son,” she said gravely. “I want you to go ahead now and try to be Somebody.
None of the others ever had your opportunity, and I hope you do something with it.
Your papa and I have done the best we could.
The rest is up to you.”
He took her hand in a moment of wild devotion and kissed it.
“I’ll do something,” he said.
“I will.”