Stoner

There was a moment of silence. Walker turned to Holland, removed the round glasses, and polished them; his eyes blinked and stared, at random. He put them back on and blinked again. "Would you repeat the question, please."

Holland started to speak, but Lomax interrupted. "Jim," he said affably, "do you mind if I extend the question a bit?" He turned quickly to Walker before Holland could answer. "Mr. Walker, proceeding from the implications of Professor Holland's question--namely, that Godwin accepted Locke's theory of the sensational nature of knowledge--the tabula rasa, and all that--and that Godwin believed with Locke that judgment and knowledge falsified by the accidents of passion and the inevitability of ignorance could be rectified by education-- given these implications, would you comment on Shelley's principle of knowledge--specifically, the principle of beauty --enunciated in the final stanzas of 'Adonais?'"

Holland leaned back in his chair, a puzzled frown on his face. Walker nodded and said rapidly, "Though the opening stanzas of 'Adonais,' Shelley's tribute to his friend and peer, John Keats, are conventionally classical, what with their allusions to the Mother, the Hours, to Urania and so forth, and with their repetitive invocations--the really classical moment does not appear until the final stanzas, which are, in effect, a sublime hymn to the eternal Principle of Beauty. If, for a moment, we may focus our attention upon these famous lines:

Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,

Stains the white radiance of eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments.

"The symbolism implicit in these lines is not clear until we take the lines in their context. The One remains,' Shelley writes a few lines earlier, 'the many change and pass.' And we are reminded of Keat's equally famous lines,

'Beauty is truth, truth Beauty,'--that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The principle, then, is Beauty; but beauty is also knowledge. And it is a conception that has its roots . .

Walker's voice continued, fluent and sure of itself, the words emerging from his rapidly moving mouth almost as if-- Stoner started, and the hope that had begun in him died as abruptly as it had been born. For a moment he felt almost physically ill. He looked down at the table and saw between his arms the image of his face reflected in the high polish of the walnut top. The image was dark, and he could not make out its features; it was as if he saw a ghost glimmering unsubstantially out of a hardness, coming to meet him.

Lomax finished his questioning, and Holland began. It was, Stoner admitted, a masterful performance; unobtrusively, with great charm and good humor, Lomax managed it all. Sometimes, when Holland asked a question, Lomax pretended a good-natured puzzlement and asked for a clarification. At other times, apologizing for his own enthusiasm, he followed up one of Holland's questions with a speculation of his own, drawing Walker into the discussion, so that it seemed that he was an actual participant. He rephrased questions (always apologetically), changing them so that the original intent was lost in the elucidation. He engaged Walker in what seemed to be elaborately theoretical arguments, although he did most of the talking. And finally, still apologizing, he cut into Holland's questions with questions of his own that led Walker where he wanted him to go.

During this time Stoner did not speak. He listened to the talk that swirled around him; he gazed at Finch's face, which had become a heavy mask; he looked at Rutherford, who sat with his eyes closed, his head nodding; and he looked at Holland's bewilderment, at Walker's courteous disdain, and at Lomax's feverish animation. He was waiting to do what he knew he had to do, and he was waiting with a dread and an anger and a sorrow that grew more intense with every minute that passed. He was glad that none of their eyes met his own as he gazed at them.

Finally Holland's period of questioning was over. As if he somehow participated in the dread that Stoner felt, Finch glanced at his watch and nodded. He did not speak.

Stoner took a deep breath. Still looking at the ghost of his face in the mirrorlike finish of the tabletop, he said expressionlessly, "Mr. Walker, I'm going to ask you a few questions about English literature. They will be simple questions, and they will not require elaborate answers. I shall start early and I shall proceed chronologically, so far as time will allow me. Will you begin by describing to me the principles of Anglo-Saxon versification?"