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company, and though I found myself talking with relish on a bewildering variety of topics—some of them quite personal, and with more frankness than was customary—I was convinced that I was acting of my own volition. I wish I could remember much of what was said that day—actually, I do remember more of what
I
said, most of it too fatuous for me to recall with pleasure. The only point at which he differed (aside from an incredulous eyebrow raised at my mention of Picasso; when I came to know him better I realized that he must have thought this an almost personal affront) was on the topic of psychology, which was, after all, heavy on my mind, working for Dr. Roland and everything. “But do youreally think,” he said, concerned, “that one can call psychology a science?”
    “Certainly. What else is it?”
    “But even Plato knew that class and conditioning and so forth have an inalterable effect on the individual. It seems to me that psychology is only another word for what the ancients called fate.”
    “Psychology
is
a terrible word.”
    He agreed vigorously. “Yes, it is terrible, isn’t it?” he said, but with an expression that indicated that he thought it rather tasteless of me even to use it. “Perhaps in certain ways it is a helpful construct in talking about a certain kind of mind. The country people who live around me are fascinating because their lives are so closely bound to fate that they really are predestined. But—” he laughed—“I’m afraid my students are never very interesting to me because I always know exactly what they’re going to do.”
    I was charmed by his conversation, and despite its illusion of being rather modern and digressive (to me, the hallmark of the modern mind is that it loves to wander from its subject) I now see that he was leading me by circumlocution to the same points again and again. For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.
    We talked a while longer, and presently fell silent. After a moment Julian said courteously, “If you’d like, I’d be happy to take you as a pupil, Mr. Papen.”
    I, looking out the window and having half-forgotten why I was there, turned to gape at him and couldn’t think of a thing to say.
    “However, before you accept, there are a few conditions to which you must agree.”
    “What?” I said, suddenly alert.
    “Will you go to the Registrar’s office tomorrow and put in a request to change counselors?” He reached for a pen in a cup on his desk; amazingly, it was full of Montblanc fountain pens, Meisterstücks, at least a dozen of them. Quickly he wrote out a note and handed it to me. “Don’t lose it,” he said, “because the Registrar never assigns me counselees unless I request them.”
    The note was written in a masculine, rather nineteenth-centuryhand, with Greek e’s. The ink was still wet. “But I have a counselor,” I said.
    “It is my policy never to accept a pupil unless I am his counselor as well. Other members of the literature faculty disagree with my teaching methods and you will run into problems if someone else gains the power to veto my decisions. You should pick up some drop-add forms as well. I think you are going to have to drop all the classes you are currently taking, except the French, which would be as well for you to keep. You appear to be deficient in the area of modern languages.”
    I was astonished. “I can’t drop
all
my classes.”
    “Why not?”
    “Registration is over.”
    “That doesn’t matter at all,” said Julian serenely. “The classes that I want you to pick up will be with me. You will probably be taking three or four classes with me per term for the rest of your time here.”
    I looked at him. No wonder he had only five students. “But how can I