But he mentioned Harvard.
For him, it was not the name of a university — it was rich magic, wealth, elegance, joy, proud loneliness, rich books and golden browsing; it was an enchanted name like Cairo and Damascus.
And he felt somehow that it gave a reason, a goal of profit, to his wild ecstasy.
“Yes,” said Vergil Weldon approvingly.
“It’s the place for you, Mr. Gant.
It doesn’t matter about the others. They’re ready now.
But a mind like yours must not be pulled green.
You must give it a chance to ripen.
There you will find yourself.”
And he talked enchantingly about the good free life of the mind, cloistered study, the rich culture of the city, and about the food.
“They give you food there that a man can eat, Mr. Gant,” he said.
“Your mind can do its work on it.”
Then he spoke of his own student days there, and of the great names of Royce and Everett, and William James.
Eugene looked with passionate devotion at the grand old head, calm, wise and comforting.
In a moment of vision, he saw that, for him, here was the last of the heroes, the last of those giants to whom we give the faith of our youth, believing like children that the riddle of our lives may be solved by their quiet judgment.
He believed, and no experience, he knew, would ever make him disbelieve, that one of the great lives of his time had unfolded itself quietly in the little college town.
Oh, my old Sophist, he thought.
What were all the old philosophies that you borrowed and pranked up to your fancy, to you, who were greater than all?
What was the Science of Thinking, to you, who were Thought?
What if all your ancient game of metaphysics never touched the dark jungle of my soul?
Do you think you have replaced my childhood’s God with your Absolute?
No, you have only replaced his beard with a mustache, and a glint of demon hawk-eyes.
To me, you were above good, above truth, above righteousness.
To me, you were the sufficient negation to all your teachings.
Whatever you did was, by its doing, right.
And now I leave you throned in memory.
You will see my dark face burning on your bench no more; the memory of me will grow mixed and broken; new boys will come to win your favor and your praise.
But you?
Forever fixed, unfading, bright, my lord.
Then, while the old man talked, Eugene leaped suddenly to his feet, and grasped the lean hand tightly in his own.
“Mr. Weldon!” he said. “Mr. Weldon!
You are a great man!
I shall never forget you!”
Then, turning, he plunged off blindly down the path.
He still loitered, although his baggage had been packed for days.
With a desperate pain, he faced departure from that Arcadian wilderness where he had known so much joy.
At night he roamed the deserted campus, talking quietly until morning with a handful of students who lingered strangely, as he did, among the ghostly buildings, among the phantoms of lost boys.
He could not face a final departure.
He said he would return early in autumn for a few days, and at least once a year thereafter.
Then one hot morning, on sudden impulse, he left.
As the car that was taking him to Exeter roared down the winding street, under the hot green leafiness of June, he heard, as from the sea-depth of a dream, far-faint, the mellow booming of the campus bell.
And suddenly it seemed to him that all the beaten walks were thudding with the footfalls of lost boys, himself among them, running for their class.
Then, as he listened, the far bell died away, and the phantom runners thudded into oblivion.
Soon the car roared up by Vergil Weldon’s house, and as he passed, he saw the old man sitting below his tree. Eugene stood up in the car and waved his long arm in a gesture of farewell.
“Good-bye,” he cried.
“Good-bye.”
The old man stood up with a quiet salute of parting, slow, calm, eloquently tender.
Then, even while Eugene stood looking back upon the street, the car roared up across the lip of the hill, and drove steeply down into the hot parched countryside below.
But as the lost world faded from his sight, Eugene gave a great cry of pain and sadness, for he knew that the elfin door had closed behind him, and that he would never come back again.
He saw the vast rich body of the hills, lush with billowing greenery, ripe-bosomed, dappled by far-floating cloud-shadows.