"King Lear," Stoner said seriously.
"Act Three, Scene Four," said Masters. "And so providence, or society, or fate, or whatever name you want to give it, has created this hovel for us, so that we can go in out of the storm. It's for us that the University exists, for the dispossessed of the world; not for the students, not for the selfless pursuit of knowledge, not for any of the reasons that you hear. We give out the reasons, and we let a few of the ordinary ones in, those that would do in the world; but that's just protective coloration. Like the church in the Middle Ages, which didn't give a damn about the laity or even about God, we have our pretenses in order to survive. And we shall survive—because we have to."
Finch shook his head admiringly. "You sure make us sound bad, Dave."
"Maybe I do," Masters said. "But bad as we are, we're better than those on the outside, in the muck, the poor bastards of the world. We do no harm, we say what we want, and we get paid for it; and that's a triumph of natural virtue, or pretty damn close to it."
Masters leaned back from the table, indifferent, no longer concerned with what he had said.
Gordon Finch cleared his throat. "Well, now," he said earnestly. "You may have something in what you say, Dave. But I think you go too far. I really do."
Stoner and Masters smiled at each other, and they spoke no more of the question that evening. But for years afterward, at odd moments, Stoner remembered what Masters had said; and though it brought him no vision of the University to which he had committed himself, it did reveal to him something about his relationship to the two men, and it gave him a glimpse of the corrosive and unspoiled bitterness of youth.
On May 7, 1915, a German submarine sank the British liner Lusitania, with a hundred and fourteen American passengers on board; by the end of 1916 submarine warfare by the Germans was unrestricted, and relations between the United States and Germany steadily worsened. In February 1917 President Wilson broke off diplomatic relations. On April 6 a state of war was declared by Congress to exist between Germany and the United States.
With that declaration, thousands of young men across the nation, as if relieved that the tension of uncertainty had finally been broken, besieged the recruiting stations that had been hastily set up some weeks before. Indeed, hundreds of young men had not been able to wait for America's intervention and had as early as 1915 signed up for duty with the Royal Canadian forces or as ambulance drivers for one of the European allied armies. A few of the older students at the University had done so; and although William Stoner had not known any of these, he heard their legendary names with increasing frequency as the months and weeks drew on to the moment that they all knew must eventually come.
War was declared on a Friday, and although classes remained scheduled the following week, few students or professors made a pretense of meeting them. They milled about in the halls and gathered in small groups, murmuring in hushed voices. Occasionally the tense quietness erupted into near violence; twice there were general anti-German demonstrations, in which students shouted incoherently and waved American flags. Once there was a brief-lived demonstration against one of the professors, an old and bearded teacher of Germanic languages, who had been born in Munich and who as a youth had attended the University of Berlin. But when the professor met the angry and flushed little group of students, blinked in bewilderment, and held out his thin, shaking hands to them, they disbanded in sullen confusion.
During those first days after the declaration of war Stoner also suffered a confusion, but it was profoundly different from that which gripped most of the others on the campus. Though he had talked about the war in Europe with the older students and instructors, he had never quite believed in it; and now that it was upon him, upon them all, he discovered within himself a vast reserve of indifference. He resented the disruption which the war forced upon the University; but he could find in himself no very strong feelings of patriotism, and he could not bring himself to hate the Germans.
But the Germans were there to be hated. Once Stoner came upon Gordon Finch talking to a group of older faculty members; Finch's face was twisted, and he was speaking of the "Huns" as if he were spitting on the floor. Later, when he approached Stoner in the large office which half a dozen of the younger instructors shared, Finch's mood had shifted; feverishly jovial, he clapped Stoner on the shoulder.
"Can't let them get away with it, Bill," he said rapidly. A film of sweat like oil glistened on his round face, and his thin blond hair lay in lank strands over his skull. "No, sir. I'm going to join up. I've already talked to old Sloane about it, and he said to go ahead. I'm going down to St. Louis tomorrow and sign up." For an instant he managed to compose his features into a semblance of gravity. "We've all got to do our part." Then he grinned and clapped Stoner's shoulder again. "You better come along with me."
"Me?" Stoner said, and said again, incredulously, "Me?"
Finch laughed. "Sure. Everybody's signing up. I just talked to Dave—he's coming with me."
Stoner shook his head as if dazed. "Dave Masters?"
"Sure. Old Dave talks kind of funny sometimes, but when the chips are down he's no different from anybody else; hell do his part. Just like you'll do yours, Bill." Finch punched him on the arm. "Just like you'll do yours."
Stoner was silent for a moment. "I hadn't thought about it," he said. 'It all seems to have happened so quickly. I'll have to talk to Sloane. I'll let you know."
"Sure," Finch said. "You'll do your part." His voice thickened with feeling. "We're all in this together now, Bill; we're all in it together."
Stoner left Finch then, but he did not go to see Archer Sloane. Instead he looked about the campus and inquired after David Masters. He found him in one of the library carrels, alone, puffing on a pipe and staring at a shelf of books.
Stoner sat across from him at the carrel desk. When he questioned him about his decision to join the Army, Masters said, "Sure. Why not?"
And when Stoner asked him why, Masters said, "You know me pretty well, Bill. I don't give a damn about the Germans. When it comes down to it, I don't really give a damn about the Americans either, I guess." He knocked his pipe ashes out on the floor and swept them around with his foot. "I suppose I'm doing it because it doesn't matter whether I do it or not. And it might be amusing to pass through the world once more before I return to the cloistered and slow extinction that awaits us all."
Though he did not understand, Stoner nodded, accepting what Masters told him. He said, "Gordon wants me to enlist with you."
Masters smiled. "Gordon feels the first strength of virtue he's ever been allowed to feel; and he naturally wants to include the rest of the world in it, so that he can keep on believing. Sure. Why not? Join up with us. It might do you good to see what the world's like." He paused and looked intently at Stoner. "But if you do, for Christ's sake don't do it for God, country, and the dear old U. of M. Do it for yourself."
Stoner waited several moments. Then he said, "I'll talk to Sloane and let you know."
He did not know what he expected Archer Sloane's response to be; nevertheless he was surprised when he confronted him in his narrow book-lined office and told him of what was not quite yet his decision.
Sloane, who had always maintained toward him an attitude of detached and courtly irony, lost his temper. His long thin face went red, and the lines on either side of his mouth deepened in anger; he half rose from his chair toward Stoner, his fists clenched. Then he settled back and deliberately loosened his fists and spread his hands upon his desk; the fingers were trembling, but his voice was steady and harsh.