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the river disturbed the calm. It was often well past midnight when I got home.
    It was one evening about a month after I had started the assistantship that I found myself confronted with a list of duties unusually long. I had not gotten much sleep the night before and the prospect of staying up all night was far from attractive. I hit upon a plan. I knew that Dr. Hardwicke’s first lecture wasn’t until the afternoon of the following day and if I returned early the next morning I would have plenty of time to complete the allotted tasks.
    When I arrived home unexpectedly, I discovered him there in my house, dressed in his usual attire, the black coat, waistcoat, and trousers. The white cravat carefully tied. The lavender-colored kid gloves. He appeared to be imploring Camille, hands outstretched in an entreating gesture. Even more horrifying, there was a glint of warmth in her dark eyes, a desperate fascination born of her utter isolation and loneliness. She looked up blankly. The twisted little man showed more surprise. Veins bulged through his thinning, reddish hair. His face puffed crimson. “Gladstone!” gasped the voice.
    I was furious. I moved toward him, but in an instant he was gone.
    That night we fought as we had never fought. Although Camille had no awareness of the incident, Cletus had apparently seen her at one of the dance halls. Perhaps he had hoped ultimately to blackmail her. I don’t know. All I knew was that he had visited her with intents of gaining more than her favor. She had not succumbed to his immoral entreaty, but the mere fact that she seemed to be flattered by it, still took his hand warmly, sickened me. How could she stoop to trifle with such a disgusting little man? As soon as she had discovered his intent, why hadn’t she had him thrown out? My pride was hurt, but there was more, I knew that she was faithful to me, but somewhere deep inside I always wondered what she had secretly wanted to do, what would have happened had I not intervened?
    After I left her I paced for hours in my room. I was torn, torn because my intellect told me I had no right to judge her. It was I who had brought her into a world where she didn’t belong. I knew what she was. I even understood the starvation that had glimmered in her eye for a visitor, any visitor, even that malformed and repulsive little blackguard, but my emotions overwhelmed me. No amount of intellect could ever banish the pain that sprung within me. I was controlled by the pain. Whenever I recalled the image of his gnarled appendage reaching for her sweet hand... It was the pain that caused me to allow her to believe I blamed her when secretly I blamed myself.
    That evening I also began to understand something that I had never quite understood before. I had always thought of myself as a sort of rebel against propriety. When society wrongly judged Camille I had always held her to my heart as an innocent victim. However, there were sides to my beloved, things that both allured and repelled, that even I could not condone. I was loath to admit it, but at certain times I found myself inextricably on the other side of the fence. There were certain issues in which she was quite blameless, but there were also certain issues in which she did stray too far from the norm. I thought I had hated propriety. I knew its hypocrisy, but at long last I realized I too had to believe there were things that simply weren’t done.
    It was well after midnight when I found myself standing before the elaborately carved seashell chair, listening to the echoes its darkness contained. And then, slowly, falteringly, I sat down, encompassed in the alcove of black oak. For the first time I felt oddly comforted by the chair, protected. My legs melted and became one with its cabriole-leg hooves. My arms sank heavily into the worn and polished hand rests. I don’t know how many hours I sat in my father’s chair.
    From that day on I had as little to do with Dr. Hardwicke as