But as this artificial carnival continues, I keep wondering more and more why no one really seems to be enjoying it.
And I’ve come to what I think is a profound conclusion. The Class is really not a class. I mean, we’re not a brotherhood — or anything at all cohesive for that matter.
In fact, the time we spent here was a kind of truce. A cease-fire in the war for fame and power. And in two more days the guns come out again.
Though it had rained intermittently throughout the earlier part of Commencement Week, Harvard’s apparent connections in Very High Places succeeded in making Thursday, June 12, 1958, a hot and sunny day, perfect for the university’s 322d Commencement Ceremony.
Everyone seemed to be in costume. From the rented black caps and gowns of the undergraduates to the electric pink of the doctoral candidates. Or the eighteenth-century garb of the sheriff of Middlesex County, who rode in on horseback to open the proceedings.
Led by Jason Gilbert and the two other marshals, The Class of ’58 marched through the Yard, around University Hall, and into the vast area between Memorial Church and Widener Library. For a few hours every year, rows of wooden seats spring up and this sylvan space is magically transformed into “Tercentenary Theater.”
As had been the practice for three centuries, the solemnities began with an oration in Latin — which perhaps sixteen people understood and everybody else pretended to.
This year’s speaker, selected two weeks earlier by the Classics Department, was Theodore Lambros of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His speech was entitled “De optimo genere felicitatis” — on the noblest form of happiness.
The Latin salutatorian’s task is, as the word suggests, to greet the dignitaries present in hierarchical order. First President Pusey, then the governor of Massachusetts, deans, pastors, and so forth.
But the crowd is really waiting for the traditional greetings to the Radcliffe girls (who, of course, come at the very end).
Twenty thousand pairs of hands applauded. But none more vigorously than those of the proud Lambros family.
After all the salutations, the orator is supposed to pronounce a small homily. And Ted had chosen as his message the fact that the highest form of happiness was to be found in truly unselfish friendship toward one’s fellow man.
It was not long thereafter that President Pusey bade The Class of ’58 rise to its feet and its representatives mount the steps of Memorial Church to join “the fellowship of educated men.”
First Marshal Jason Gilbert walked to the podium to accept the symbolic diploma for all of them.
Sitting near the stage in a section reserved for relatives of the participants, Jason’s father overheard a female voice exclaim, “He looks just like something out of Scott Fitzgerald.”
Mr. Gilbert turned to caution his wife not to speak so loudly. But in doing so, he realized that Betsy was crying and the compliment had been articulated by another woman sitting in their row. And he smiled and thought, There’s no prouder father in this whole damn place.
He was not correct, of course. There were nearly a thousand fathers of The Glass of ’58 among those present, all of whom were sharing what they thought was the zenith of euphoria and pride.
Four years earlier, 1,162 young men had entered Harvard with The Class of ’58. Today, 1,031 of them received diplomas. Just over ten percent had failed to stay the course. In ancient Roman terms, they had been decimated.
Some who had flunked out along the way might perhaps come back in a later year and finish their degrees. Still others had surrendered their ambition to be Harvard men either by giving up their sanity or taking their own lives. But no one thought of them today, for this was a time for congratulation, not compassion.
Not even Jason gave a thought to David Davidson, his freshman roommate, who was still resident in Massachusetts Mental Hospital, undaunted by his temporary setback, still dreaming of future scientific glory.
Half an hour later, The Class broke into smaller groups to have luncheon in their houses.
Back at Eliot, Art and Gisela Rossi’s meal with Danny would be simultaneously a farewell. For he’d be leaving the next morning to return to Tanglewood — as soloist this summer. And after that to Europe to begin the concert tour that Hurok had arranged.
His mother couldn’t keep from asking why Maria was not there. For she had really liked the girl.
Art Rossi was more understanding. “Come on, honey,” he whispered, “she was probably just a passing fancy. Dan’s too young and clever to let himself get hooked so soon.”
Danny kept up the charade and smiled. Though inwardly he was aggrieved that when he’d asked her to be his date “just for old times’ sake,” Maria had declined.
George Keller had resigned himself to eating lunch alone on a courtyard step. Clearly, no one near and dear to him was that day present. Then Andrew Eliot approached him. “Hey, George,” he said good-naturedly, “do me a favor, huh? Come on over to our table and talk to some of my stepsisters. I mean, I can’t remember half their names but some of them are cute.”
“Thank you, Andrew, that is most cordial. I’d be ravished to join you.”
As George rose to walk to the Eliot family table in the courtyard of the house called Eliot, with his classmate Andrew of that same name, the latter whispered to him, “George, your English is terrific. But don’t say ‘ravished.’ Say my sister — any one of them — is ravishing.”
Later in the afternoon, the separation was complete. They now divided into a thousand atoms, going off at varied speeds in differing directions.
Would they ever come together as a unity again?
Had they ever been one?
REAL LIFE
Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
ANDREW ELIOT’S DIARY
June 14, 1958
Ted and Sara got married today. I was best man — probably on the grounds that I had been their landlord for so long. (“If this were the Middle Ages, you’d be entitled to droit du seigneur,” Sara joked.)
It was a simple affair for complex reasons. To begin with, Sara was Episcopal and Ted, of course, Greek Orthodox. Not that the Lambros family was making any sacramental demands, mind you. But Daisy Harrison seemed to have thought it best to have the ceremony on more or less neutral grounds: in Appleton Chapel, at the back of Mem. Church, under the aegis of the distinguished George Lyman Buttrick, Preacher to the University.
This, as I interpreted Daisy’s strategy, solved a multitude of problems while preserving at least a shimmer of class.