The office was long and narrow, lighted by a single window at the far end. Shelves crowded with books rose to the high ceiling. Near the window a desk was wedged, and before this desk, half turned and outlined darkly against the light, sat Archer Sloane.
"Mr. Stoner," Sloane said dryly, half rising and indicating a leather-covered chair facing him. Stoner sat down.
"I have been looking through your records." Sloane paused and lifted a folder from his desk, regarding it with detached irony. "I hope you do not mind my inquisitiveness."
Stoner wet his lips and shifted on the chair. He tried to fold his large hands together so that they would be invisible. "No, sir," he said in a husky voice.
Sloane nodded. "Good. I note that you began your course of studies here as an agriculture student and that sometime during your sophomore year you switched your program to literature. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir," Stoner said.
Sloane leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the square of light that came in from the high small window. He tapped his fingertips together and turned back to the young man who sat stiffly in front of him.
"The official purpose of this conference is to inform you that you will have to make a formal change of study program, declaring your intention to abandon your initial course of study and declare your final one. It's a matter of five minutes or so at the registrar's office. You will take care of that, won't you?"
"Yes, sir," Stoner said.
"But as you may have guessed, that is not the reason I asked you to drop by. Do you mind if I inquire a little about your future plans?"
"No, sir," Stoner said. He looked at his hands, which were twisted tightly together.
Sloane touched the folder of papers that he had dropped on his desk. "I gather that you were a bit older than the ordinary student when you first entered the University. Nearly twenty, I believe?"
"Yes, sir," Stoner said.
"And at that time your plans were to undertake the sequence offered by the school of Agriculture?"
"Yes, sir."
Sloane leaned back in his chair and regarded the high dim ceiling. He asked abruptly, "And what are your plans now?"
Stoner was silent. This was something he had not thought about, had not wanted to think about. He said at last, with a touch of resentment, "I don't know. I haven't given it much thought."
Sloane said, "Are you looking forward to the day when you emerge from these cloistered walls into what some call the world?"
Stoner grinned through his embarrassment. "No, sir."
Sloane tapped the folder of papers on his desk. "I am informed by these records that you come from a farming community. I take it that your parents are farm people?"
Stoner nodded.
"And do you intend to return to the farm after you receive your degree here?"
"No, sir," Stoner said, and the decisiveness of his voice surprised him. He thought with some wonder of the decision he had suddenly made.
Sloane nodded. "I should imagine a serious student of literature might find his skills not precisely suited to the persuasion of the soil."
"I won't go back," Stoner said as if Sloane had not spoken. "I don't know what I'll do exactly." He looked at his hands and said to them, "I can't quite realize that I'll be through so soon, that I'll be leaving the University at the end of the year."
Sloane said casually, "There is, of course, no absolute need for you to leave. I take it that you have no independent means?"
Stoner shook his head.
"You have an excellent undergraduate record. Except for your"— he lifted his eyebrows and smiled—"except for your sophomore survey of English literature, you have all A's in your English courses; nothing below a B elsewhere. If you could maintain yourself for a year or so beyond graduation, you could, I'm sure, successfully complete the work for your Master of Arts; after which you would probably be able to teach while you worked toward your doctorate. If that sort of thing would interest you at all."
Stoner drew back. "What do you mean?" he asked and heard something like fear in his voice.
Sloane leaned forward until his face was close; Stoner saw the lines on the long thin face soften, and he heard the dry mocking voice become gentle and unprotected.
"But don't you know, Mr. Stoner?" Sloane asked. "Don't you understand about yourself yet? You're going to be a teacher."
Suddenly Sloane seemed very distant, and the walls of the office receded. Stoner felt himself suspended in the wide air, and he heard his voice ask, "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," Sloane said softly.
"How can you tell? How can you be sure?"
"It's love, Mr. Stoner," Sloane said cheerfully. "You are in love. It's as simple as that."
It was as simple as that. He was aware that he nodded to Sloane and said something inconsequential. Then he was walking out of the office. His lips were tingling and his fingertips were numb; he walked as if he were asleep, yet he was intensely aware of his surroundings. He brushed against the polished wooden walls in the corridor, and he thought he could feel the warmth and age of the wood; he went slowly down the stairs and wondered at the veined cold marble that seemed to slip a little beneath his feet. In the halls the voices of the students became distinct and individual out of the hushed murmur, and their faces were close and strange and familiar. He went out of Jesse Hall into the morning, and the grayness no longer seemed to oppress the campus; it led his eyes outward and upward into the sky, where he looked as if toward a possibility for which he had no name.
In the first week of June, in the year 1914, William Stoner, with sixty other young men and a few young ladies, received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri.
To attend the ceremony, his parents—in a borrowed buggy drawn by their old dun mare—had started the day before, driving overnight the forty-odd miles from the farm, so that they arrived at the Footes' shortly after dawn, stiff from their sleepless journey. Stoner went down into the yard to meet them. They stood side by side in the crisp morning light and awaited his approach.
Stoner and his father shook hands with a single quick pumping action, not looking at each other.
"How do," his father said.
His mother nodded. "Your pa and me come down to see you graduate."
For a moment he did not speak. Then he said, "You'd better come in and get some breakfast"
They were alone in the kitchen; since Stoner had come to the farm the Footes had got in the habit of sleeping late. But neither then nor after his parents had finished breakfast could he bring himself to tell them of his change of plans, of his decision not to return to the farm. Once or twice he started to speak; then he looked at the brown faces that rose nakedly out of their new clothing, and thought of the long journey they had made and of the years they had awaited his return. He sat stiffly with them until they finished the last of their coffee, and until the Footes roused themselves and came into the kitchen. Then he told them that he had to go early to the University and that he would see them there later in the day, at the exercises.
He wandered about the campus, carrying the black robe and cap that he had hired; they were heavy and troublesome, but he could find no place to leave them. He thought of what he would have to tell his parents, and for the first time realized the finality of his decision, and almost wished that he could recall it. He felt his inadequacy to the goal he had so recklessly chosen and felt the attraction of the world he had abandoned. He grieved for his own loss and for that of his parents, and even in his grief felt himself drawing away from them.