5
It was a bright morning. Through the high windows of the classroom
came soft sunlight filtered through the delicate fiberglass grillwork
that faced the entire west side of the building. I looked down at the
peaceful campus, the slowly moving streams of students, the expanse of
cool green grass, the solid impressiveness of nearby buildings. In the
distance I could see a section of the practice football field and I
thought of Mike Boyle, driving his huge shoulder into a tackling dummy,
sweating and grunting, thick thighs driving powerfully. A monstrous
youth, all right. But an unearthly monster? Hardly.
I heard the restless movement in the room behind me and I wrenched my
thoughts back to the lecture.
"Why is _Beowulf_ called an epic?" I asked rhetorically, turning.
"Because of its scope. Because of the greatness of its hero. Because
it expresses the whole struggle and aspiration and point of view of
its people. Its action is on a grand scale. Its emotions are deep
and powerful. This is not the twentieth century story of a housewife
who has a petty little affair with a mediocre man she meets in the
super market. This is big. This is important. It has to do with the
vital issues of life. It has greatness. Victory is a triumph over a
formidable enemy of the people. Defeat is death, and even in the manner
of dying there is majesty and heroism." I paused, letting my eyes rove
over the room, using the teacher's trick of focusing on the last row
and thus seeming to be looking at all of the students in between. Their
faces were all turned toward me in a semblance of respectful attention.
A boy in the third row was sleeping with his eyes half open. "And the
manner of the writing is in keeping with the heroic action," I went on,
letting my gaze move forward to the front row, to the shock of flaming
red hair and a pair of carelessly crossed legs sleekly clad in spun
plastisheen. "It is powerful, strongly rhythmic, eloquent."
I smiled. Laurie Hendricks seemed to sigh, and the slight movement
brought my attention to her breasts, softly outlined under a
lemon-colored sweater.
"Of course it loses much in translation," I added. There was a
respectful titter of amusement from the class. The old prof, I thought,
with his academic jokes. Even at twenty-seven, in my fourth year of
teaching, I had fallen into the habit of repeating the same jokes each
semester. Laurie Hendricks smiled warmly at me and I found myself
reacting to the moist red curve of her lips, liking the fact that she
had been amused.
During the long, relatively sleepless night, my faith in the validity
of my mind's impressions had wavered badly. I had ranged from an angry
conviction that everything I had heard was real and true, through
all the stages of argument and doubt, down to a dismal hopelessness,
an acknowledgment that alien minds and macabre plots were grotesque
splinters off my peculiar branch of insanity.
Looking now at Laurie Hendricks, I found myself reluctant to believe
that she was anything but an unusually beautiful girl who was giving
every indication of being more than ordinarily interested in me. The
accidental circumstance of the previous night's meeting had created a
new relationship between us without a word being spoken this morning.
She was no longer just another anonymous student. And I strongly
suspected that I was no longer to her just another stuffy instructor.
I turned abruptly toward the sleeping boy in the third row. "Mr.
Carbo," I said sharply. "Mr. Carbo!"
His head came up with a snap. His eyes were still dull with sleep.
"Huh?"
"Mr. Carbo, are you with us?"
The class laughed, warming to a situation in which someone else is made
to look a little ridiculous.
"Mr. Carbo, what do you think of Beowulf's technique in handling the
dragon?"
"I don't think I understand, sir," the boy said lamely.
"You have read the assignment I suppose."
"Yes, sir."
"Did anything strike you about the fight?"
"Well, I thought it was kind of bloodthirsty, sir."
"The Anglo-Saxons were a bloodthirsty people," I said. "They didn't
have television or movies or synthetic-participation sports to let them
drain off some of their violence. Even their literature was more like a
battle cry than a civilized catharsis of emotions."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm glad you agree, Mr. Carbo." I felt that I was being rather hard on
him, but you were expected to make a goat out of the guilty student who
slept or talked or failed to study. It was standard teaching procedure
and not without its value in keeping the class on its toes.
I let him off the hook, turning to address the class as a whole. "You
know how boxers will waste the first round feeling each other out,
testing the other's reactions? Did you notice anything similar in
Beowulf's approach to battle?"
"Yeah," a student called from the back of the room. "He lets the dragon
gobble up a couple of the other guys."
"Right!" I said with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Miss Hendricks, would you
read that passage for us?"
She looked startled. As she hunted for the place there was a general
thud and rustle of textbooks being hastily opened. Laurie Hendricks
coughed and began to read. Her voice was low, hesitant, pleasantly
husky. The passage she read told in gory detail how the ancient hero
had watched as the dragon entered the mead hall, had waited, feigning
sleep, studying the enemy's movements, even though this involved a
rather grim death for some of Beowulf's companions in arms. As I
listened, I thought of the younger alien the night before, standing
among the students on the campus and watching while the other flung
me into the street in front of the racing car. I heard the words of
the centuries-old epic and a detached portion of my mind told me
that, unlike the mighty Anglo-Saxon warrior, I couldn't wait out the
enemy. I already knew how he worked. If I waited there would be another
accident. I had to find the enemy before he or she had a chance to
attack.
Laurie Hendricks finished reading and glanced up questioningly from the
text. I nodded to indicate that that was enough. My gaze held hers.
"The point I'm making," I said, "is that the attitude toward life
was so different from ours. Unless you understand and accept that
difference you can't respond to the literature of the people at that
time. Their view of the universe was alien to anything we know. Human
life was cheap. To stay alive was a constant struggle. Life didn't last
very long--"
The bell rang to signal the end of the lecture. I held up my hand,
stilling the immediate mass movement out of the seats.
"I have to talk to you individually about your term papers," I
said quickly, ignoring the general groan. "I'll set up individual
appointments. If the students in the--first row--will stay a few
minutes I'll start with them."
I nodded and the class burst into a confusion of noise and movement.
The students in the first row lingered. I sat behind the desk in the
front of the room and waved the initial student forward. Carefully I
drew up a time schedule of office appointments. As I had hoped, Laurie
Hendricks waited until the last. We were alone in the classroom when
she uncurled from her seat and swayed toward the desk. The soft curve
of her mouth was provocative.
"You don't look any the worse for wear, Professor."
I smiled faintly. "I'm only an instructor, Miss Hendricks, not a
professor. And I feel fine, thanks to you and your friends."
"We just picked you up and dusted you off."
There was a brief, awkward silence. Our eyes met appraisingly. She
leaned a firmly rounded hip against the edge of the desk.
"I'd like to thank your friends personally," I said at last. "Would you
give me their names?"
"Sure--but you don't have to thank them."
"I'd like to. I know Mike Boyle, of course--but who was the girl with
him?"
"That's Helen Darrow. She's a physics major. She and Mike are going
steady now."
I looked surprised. The girl hadn't seemed like the kind who would
be majoring in physics. And that fact didn't go along with a co-ed's
worshipful admiration of a brawny football star.
"They're a funny couple," Laurie Hendricks said, patting her red hair
with graceful fingers. "But sometimes a man and a woman can clink
together when you'd least expect it."