Stoner by John Williams

Author:John Williams [Williams, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2010-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

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And he had not heard the last of it.

He turned his grades in on the Monday following the Friday closing of the semester. It was the part of teaching he most disliked, and he always got it out of the way as soon as he could. He gave Walker his F and thought no more about the matter. He spent most of the week between semesters reading the first drafts of two theses due for final presentation in the spring. They were awkwardly done, and they needed much of his attention. The Walker incident was crowded from his mind.

But two weeks after the second semester started he was again reminded of it. He found one morning in his mailbox a note from Gordon Finch asking him to drop by the office at his convenience for a chat.

The friendship between Gordon Finch and William Stoner had reached a point that all such relationships, carried on long enough, come to; it was casual, deep, and so guardedly intimate that it was almost impersonal. They seldom saw each other socially, although occasionally Caroline Finch made a perfunctory call on Edith. While they talked they remembered the years of their youth, and each thought of the other as he had been at another time.

In his early middle age Finch had the erect soft bearing of one who tries vigorously to keep his weight under control; his face was heavy and as yet unlined, though his jowls were beginning to sag and the flesh was gathering in rolls on the back of his neck. His hair was very thin, and he had begun to comb it so that the baldness would not be readily apparent.

On the afternoon that Stoner stopped by his office, they spoke for a few moments casually about their families; Finch maintained the easy convention of pretending that Stoner's marriage was a normal one, and Stoner professed his conventional disbelief that Gordon and Caroline could be the parents of two children, the younger of which was already in kindergarten.

After they had made their automatic gestures toward their casual intimacy, Finch looked out his window distractedly and said, "Now, what was it I wanted to talk to you about? Oh, yes. The dean of the Graduate College—he thought, since we were friends, I ought to mention it to you. Nothing of any importance." He looked at a note on his memo book. "Just an irate graduate student who thinks he got screwed in one of your classes last semester."

"Walker," Stoner said. "Charles Walker."

Finch nodded. "That's the one. What's the story on him?"

Stoner shrugged. "As far as I could tell, he didn't do any of the reading assigned—it was my seminar in the Latin Tradition. He tried to fake his seminar report, and when I gave him the chance either to do another one or produce a copy of his paper, he refused. I had no alternative but to flunk him."

Finch nodded again. "I figured it was something like that. God knows, I wish

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