All He Ever Wanted (10 page)

There was at the college a battle brewing between two opposing factions, and I had somewhat unexpectedly found myself the
informal leader of one of them. Perhaps this was a consequence of my newfound confidence and popularity during the winter
months; more likely, it was because of the passion of my convictions. I could not then (and still cannot) countenance the
idea of a department of physical culture at any college of classical learning, nor, moreover, the conferring of degrees in
this nondiscipline upon matriculating students.

To give a degree to students whose chief occupation for four years has been employing wood-and-iron dumbbells in rhythmic
motions or running circles in a gymnasium, all the while yelling like Rebels, is nothing short of absurd. Perhaps there is
a place for physical exercise in the life of an individual — in the
private
life of the individual, that is, and to be carried out
in private,
as are other bodily functions — but to make of it an academic discipline with all the same rights and privileges as, say,
Mathematics or Biblical History and Interpretation is an idea that would have been laughable had it not been proposed so seriously.

The Tuesday following the Monday of my hideous news, I was scheduled to speak at a meeting of college faculty and administration.
I was to debate (and then vote upon) a proposal which would allow Professor Arthur Hallock (who did have, I am bound to say,
a degree in medicine from the Medical School of Maine at Bowdoin College and who taught Anatomy and Physiology at Thrupp)
to create a department of physical culture, which would elevate its study (what
study?
I ask) to the status of Literature and History. Worse, all college students would be compelled to take courses in this field
and to keep to a regular regimen of physical exercise on pain of forfeiting their degrees. Even now — in this moving compartment
and so far removed from the fray — I can work myself up into quite a froth on this subject.

The faculty had divided itself on this issue; two-thirds were in favor of instituting the new discipline and one-third were
against. Mine was, unfortunately, the minority view, and thus it was all the more necessary to exhibit the courage of my convictions
in a stirring speech before the assembled staff of the college. To say that I was not in a fit condition to do this is an
almost ludicrous bit of understatement. I was barely able to stand and was completely unable to take food of any kind, since
I was still in shock over the distressing news of Etna’s sudden departure. Worse, I could not gather my thoughts properly.
I had left the drafting of my argument until the last minute, an uncharacteristically procrastinive gesture on my part, though,
as I have said, during that time I had let a certain laxity undermine my normally excellent discipline. Thus was I faced with
the horror of having to compose a speech within hours of having read Etna’s letter. That I was able to do so at all is testimony
to my considerable willpower, for I remember having the utmost difficulty concentrating. In addition, I kept succumbing to
intense fits of despair. Only by remaining awake most of the hours of the night was I able to fashion something that at least
resembled an argument.

The next morning, the faculty assembled in the Anatomy amphitheater. Hallock and I and the President of the college, Isaac
Phillips, sat on the stage. By common though unspoken agreement, the faculty had seated themselves more or less according
to their convictions — two-thirds on one side of the theater, the remaining third on the other side, which made the room look
a bit like a state legislature. As mentioned, I had not slept much the night before, and I knew I presented a poor argument
for the continued absence of physical culture at the college. I looked pale, even haggard, and though I took great pains to
position my features and my limbs so as to convey a brighter aspect, the center of my being felt aged to the core.

Hallock, by contrast, radiated good health and seemed to anticipate the debate with genuine relish. One could not fail to
notice his impossibly erect spine or the way his muscled limbs nearly burst from his frock coat. He was reported to have had
an excellent arm in his time and, consequently, he coached, in the springtime, the fledgling and seldom victorious Thrupp
Throwing Team.

After an introduction by President Phillips, Hallock took the podium. He began by assembling an impressive number of facts
about the deteriorating health of Thrupp students. Though I managed to feign politeness at the beginning of the assembly,
I grew more and more agitated as Hallock’s argument evolved. He put forth the theory that moral and intellectual weakness
were the result of poor hygiene. He called upon the Greek ideal of the palaestra in his comparison with the physical characteristics
of the typical Thrupp student: that is, misshapen limbs, slumped posture, pale visages, and difficulties with breathing brought
on by indifference to matters of the body. He called attention to cases of disease and feebleness and, in some instances,
premature death among the students. (I thought this was going a bit too far.) If every student were required to participate
in physical exercise daily, he insisted, the general health of the student population would improve. Worse, he had the audacity
to suggest that faculty ought to be required to exercise regularly on the theory that their teaching and their relationships
with the students would improve as well. To house such activity, Hallock proposed, the college should erect a gymnasium.

I was on my feet at once, though it was some moments before I could speak over the cheers from the gallery. The proposed site
of this “gymnasium,” I informed my audience, was none other than the college’s beloved Strout Park, a particularly serene
bit of landscape nestled among the severe granite hills. Was such a precious natural resource to be squandered in the pursuit
of an enterprise that ought best to be performed in private and certainly not under the auspices of the college? To then endow,
I asserted, this endeavor with all the hallowed privileges of, say, the faculty of Literature and Rhetoric was obscene. There
was a faint titter of laughter, which I tried to ignore, despite the fact that I feared that my cause was lost (the simple
geometry of the audience could tell me that).

Nevertheless, I persevered. Was it truly the charge of the college, I asked, to take over the physical education of a man?
Was this not more properly a task suited to the military, which depended on a man’s fitness, or to the physician, whose job
it was to preserve the health of any individual? Did the college really think it could dictate health and then, piling absurdity
upon absurdity, grant a degree for it? Were the precious financial resources of the college to be spent on a facility in which
young men might run around with balls, or were they not better apportioned to the improvement of the library, which sorely
needed more books, or to the erection of an observatory, so that our understanding of the heavens might increase?

“Surely men are entitled to the pursuit of physical health,” I argued, softening my tone a bit, as is necessary in any rhetorical
argument. “Surely anyone who actually
enjoys
throwing a ball around a field can find like-minded fellows with whom to do this in his spare time. This is the essence of
recreation,
by definition an adjunct to education, not its point.”

“Hear, hear,” someone from my side called out.

“Nonsense,” shouted someone from the other side.

President Phillips had to ask for order. William Bliss was seated to my right (in the pro-gymnasium two-thirds), and I dared
not look at him lest I be derailed completely.

“But to make such an activity
compulsory,
” I said, “is beyond reason. One cannot dictate physical health any more than one can dictate good teeth or good breeding.
The college is in danger of straying into an arena in which it has no place and, further, of risking becoming a laughingstock.
Do we really imagine that sober parents will send us their children? Will they not want more for their one hundred and fifty-five
dollars a year than this misplaced commitment to harden their sons’ bodies?”

The shouts and calls had reached a level uncomfortable enough that I was forced to raise my voice above the fray.

“Of what possible use will a degree in physical culture be?” I asked, nearly shouting now. “Are we not in danger of releasing
into the world students with no skills beyond what might be useful in the military? The business of a university …” I said,
and then stopped.

“The business of a university …” I tried.

I could not finish my sentence. An odd and unpleasant sensation had taken hold of my eyes so that the audience before me had
broken into a hundred — no, a thousand — brightly moving dots.

“The business of a university …” I began again, but I could not think how I had intended for the sentence to end. My mouth
opened and closed, and I am sure I must have winced, for I was certainly wincing inwardly from extraordinary pain. I felt
light-headed and gripped the podium. It was then that I found myself most grievously indisposed in a manner I should not like
to set forth in any detail here. After a time, I felt a hand on my arm and looked up into the face of Arthur Hallock, who,
as a physician, undoubtedly felt it necessary (and politically expedient) to see to my distress. I shook him off, humiliated
by his attentions. “Go away,” I think I actually said as I fainted to the floor.

I awoke moments later on the stage of the amphitheater. I could hear Hallock telling Phillips that he thought I had had a
seizure, and though I wanted to protest this misdiagnosis, I found that I could not; that, for the moment, I had no speech.
In a state of confusion and deep chagrin, I was brought to a sitting position and then to my feet. When it was determined
I could stand on my own — even though, mysteriously, I still could not talk — I was led like a child to my rooms.

Though I regained my speech before the night was out, I was too exhausted to move or to eat — my collapse, I am convinced
now, more emotional than physical. I tried diligently to convince my would-be physician of this, but I could tell that he
was no more persuaded by my argument than he had been by my impassioned rhetoric in the amphitheater.

I remained in my rooms for several days. The vote to institute a department of physical culture was delayed a week. The outcome
might have been predicted. And although by then I hardly cared about the matter, I have often wondered whether I should have
been more persuasive and perhaps even victorious had Etna not abandoned me and had my voice contained a natural and convincing
enthusiasm for my cause, or had I not presented such a haggard appearance on the stage. Thus there might not be, even today,
a department of physical culture at Thrupp College. Which makes me ponder the nature of fate and coincidence: A man is propelled
one minute sooner to his automobile because he decides not to stop to kiss his wife good-bye. As a consequence of this omission,
he then crosses a bridge one minute before it collapses, taking all its traffic and doomed souls into the swirling and angry
depths below. Oblivious, and safely out of harm’s way, our man continues on his journey.

I waited the week in a feverish grimace. On Saturday, I hired a coach to take me to Exeter. I gave no advance warning of my
visit, for fear either Etna or her apparently formidable brother-in-law might forbid it.

The journey from Thrupp to Exeter could be made in one very long day and was then a rough journey, since there were no direct
highways to that part of the state. One had to resort to the twisting lanes and village roads of a countryside not best known
for its easy landscape. Thus I was in somewhat disheveled condition when I arrived in Exeter. Though my need to see Etna was
keen, for once prudence held sway; I asked the weary driver of the coach to take me to a boardinghouse instead.

I doubt Exeter has changed much since I was there. It is a handsome academy town with many fine residences along its High
and Water Streets. As the driver brought me into the village, I tried to imagine in which house Etna was prisoner. For that
is how I saw her then — a servant, even a slave, in her brother-in-law’s possession. If I had before been determined to liberate
her from the kindly though stifling household of her uncle, I was doubly resolved then to free her from the employ of the
man who had contrived to steal from Etna her entire capital.

I spent a restless night in the home of a widow who had been forced to open her own considerable abode to the public. In my
distraction and haste, I had neglected to pack a suitable kit and was forced to borrow from my landlady a razor and clean
shirt and so on, which I promised to return as soon as my mission was accomplished. After an odd dinner of chutney and potatoes
and brussels sprouts, I retired to my room and sat in a chair and thought about my plight and my mission. It was clear to
me, as indeed it had been clear all along, that Etna did not care for me in the same way that I cared for her. (Would I have
left Etna behind in Thrupp? Never.) At that time I attributed this imbalance to the physical and temperamental differences
between men and women. Certainly men were capable of greater passion than women, were they not? And so, perforce, must always
be the predators? And was there not a certain sport in the chase? Was I not expected to pursue Etna, no matter where she had
gone? By then, of course, I had persuaded myself that she had left Thrupp against her will, whatever she had written in her
letter. Though I had never met Josip Keep, I imagined him to be an intimidating presence, a man accustomed to having his wishes
obeyed. And would Etna not have felt dutybound to help her sister with her children? Yes, surely she would. I had seen the
way she was with her young cousin and had already admired the humor and patience she had displayed. But all of this was merely
idle speculation on my part. I could no more have given Etna up than I could have taken my life. Indeed, she was my life now.
I could not envision a future that did not include her.