The Plastic Age Percy Marks (read full novel txt) 📖

and men in prison garb roamed the campus. There were youngsters just a year out of college, still looking like undergraduates, still full of college talk. The alumni ranged all the way from these one-year men to the fifty-year men, twelve old men who had come back to Sanford fifty years after their graduation, and two of them had come all the way across the continent. There had been only fifty men originally in that class; and twelve of them were back.

What brought them back? Hugh wondered. He thought he knew, but he couldn’t have given a reason. He watched those old men wandering slowly around the campus, one of them with his grandson who was graduating this year, and he was awed by their age and their devotion to their alma mater. Yes, Henley had been right. Sanford was far from perfect, far from it⁠—a child could see that⁠—but there was something in the college that gripped one’s heart. What faults that old college had; but how one loved her!

Thousands of Japanese lanterns had been strung around the campus; an electric fountain sparkled and splashed its many-colored waters; a band seemed to be playing every hour of the day and night from the bandstand in front of the Union. It was a gay scene, and everybody seemed superbly happy except, possibly, the seniors. They pretended to be happy, but all of them were a little sad, a little frightened. College had been very beautiful⁠—and the “world outside,” what was it? What did it have in store for them?

There were mothers and fathers there to see their sons receive their degrees, there were the wives and children of the alumni, there were sisters and fiancées of the seniors. Nearly two thousand people; and at least half of the alumni drunk most of the time. Very drunk, many of them, and very foolish, but nobody minded. Somehow everyone seemed to realize that in a few brief days they were trying to recapture a youthful thrill that had gone forever. Some of the drunken ones seemed very silly, some of them seemed almost offensive; all of them were pathetic.

They had come back to Sanford where they had once been so young and exuberant, so tireless in pleasure, so in love with living; and they were trying to pour all that youthful zest into themselves again out of a bottle bought from a bootlegger. Were they having a good time? Who knows? Probably not. A bald-headed man does not particularly enjoy looking at a picture taken in his hirsute youth; and yet there is a certain whimsical pleasure in the memories the picture brings.

For three days there was much gaiety, much singing of class songs, constant parading, dances, speechmaking, class circuses, and endless shaking of hands and exchanging of reminiscences. The seniors moved through all the excitement quietly, keeping close to their relatives and friends. Graduation wasn’t so thrilling as they had expected it to be; it was more sad. The alumni seemed to be having a good time; they were ridiculously boyish: only the seniors were grave, strangely and unnaturally dignified.

Most of the alumni left the night before the graduation exercises. The parents and fiancées remained. They stood in the middle of the campus and watched the seniors, clad in caps and gowns, line up before the Union at the orders of the class marshal.

Finally, the procession, the grand marshal, a professor, in the lead with a wand in his hand, then President Culver and the governor of the State, then the men who were to receive honorary degrees⁠—a writer, a college president, a philanthropist, a professor, and three politicians⁠—then the faculty in academic robes, their many-colored hoods brilliant against their black gowns. And last the seniors, a long line of them marching in twos headed by their marshal.

The visitors streamed after them into the chapel. The seniors sat in their customary seats, the faculty and the men who were to receive honorary degrees on a platform that had been built at the altar. After they were seated, everything became a blur to Hugh. He hardly knew what was happening. He saw his father and mother sitting in the transept. He thought his mother was crying. He hoped not.⁠ ⁠… Someone prayed stupidly. There was a hymn.⁠ ⁠… What was it Cynthia had said? Oh, yes: “I can’t marry a stranger.” Well, they weren’t exactly strangers.⁠ ⁠… He was darn glad he had gone to New York.⁠ ⁠… The president seemed to be saying over and over again, “By the power invested in me⁠ ⁠…” and every time that he said it, Professor Blake would slip the loop of a colored hood over the head of a writer or a politician⁠—and then it was happening all over again.

Suddenly the class marshal motioned to the seniors to rise. They put on their mortarboards. The president said once more, “By the power invested in me.⁠ ⁠…” The seniors filed by the president, and the grand marshal handed each of them a roll of parchment tied with blue and orange ribbons. Hugh felt a strange thrill as he took his. He was graduated; he was a bachelor of science.⁠ ⁠… Back again to their seats. Someone was pronouncing benediction.⁠ ⁠… Music from the organ⁠—marching out of the chapel, the surge of friends⁠—his father shaking his hand, his mother’s arms around his neck; she was crying.⁠ ⁠…

Graduation was over, and, with it Hugh’s college days. Many of the seniors left at once. Hugh would have liked to go, too, but his father wanted to stay one more day in Haydensville. Besides, there was a final senior dance that night, and he thought that Hugh ought to attend it.

Hugh did go to the dance, but somehow it brought him no pleasure. Although it was immensely decorous, it reminded him of Cynthia. He thought of her tenderly. The best little girl he’d ever met.⁠ ⁠… He danced on, religiously steering around the sisters and fiancées of his friends, but he could not enjoy the dance. Shortly after eleven