Jul 10, 2026 · 43 min · 6 segments
Well before she became a household name, Willa Cather contributed this piece to McClure’s Magazine, a photo negative of a bildungsroman, and a tragedy about the draw of glitz and glamour.
Part One It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh High School to account for his various misdemeanors.
He had been suspended a week, and his father had called the principal's office and confessed his perplexity about his son.
His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn.
But for all that, there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black foreign hand and a red carnation in his buttonhole.
This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension.
Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest.
His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy.
The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter about them which that drug does not produce." When questioned by the principal as to why he was there, Paul stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school.
This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying, found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction.
His teachers were asked to state their respective charges, which they did with such a rancor and aggrievedness as evinced that this was not a usual case.
Disorder and impertinence were among the offenses named, yet each of his instructors felt that it was scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the boys, in the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, in which he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal.
Once, when he had been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the blackboard, his English teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand.
The astonished woman could scarcely have been more hurt and embarrassed had he struck at her.
In one way and another, he had made all of his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same feeling of physical aversion.
His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy.
His lips were continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows that was contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.
Older boys than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but his set smile did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort was the nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of his overcoat and an occasional jerking of the other hand that held his hat.
Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something.
This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence or smartness.
As the Inquisition proceeded, one of his instructors repeated an impertinent remark of the boys, and the principal asked him whether he thought that to be a courteous speech to have made to a woman.
Part One It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburgh High School to account for his various misdemeanors.
He had been suspended a week, and his father had called the principal's office and confessed his perplexity about his son.
His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn.
But for all that, there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black foreign hand and a red carnation in his buttonhole.
This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension.
Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest.
His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offensive in a boy.
The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted to belladonna, but there was a glassy glitter about them which that drug does not produce." When questioned by the principal as to why he was there, Paul stated, politely enough, that he wanted to come back to school.
This was a lie, but Paul was quite accustomed to lying, found it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction.
His teachers were asked to state their respective charges, which they did with such a rancor and aggrievedness as evinced that this was not a usual case.
Disorder and impertinence were among the offenses named, yet each of his instructors felt that it was scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner of the boys, in the contempt which they all knew he felt for them, in which he seemingly made not the least effort to conceal.
Once, when he had been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the blackboard, his English teacher had stepped to his side and attempted to guide his hand.
The astonished woman could scarcely have been more hurt and embarrassed had he struck at her.
In one way and another, he had made all of his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same feeling of physical aversion.
His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy.
His lips were continually twitching, and he had a habit of raising his eyebrows that was contemptuous and irritating to the last degree.
Older boys than Paul had broken down and shed tears under that baptism of fire, but his set smile did not once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort was the nervous trembling of the fingers that toyed with the buttons of his overcoat and an occasional jerking of the other hand that held his hat.
Paul was always smiling, always glancing about him, seeming to feel that people might be watching him and trying to detect something.
This conscious expression, since it was as far as possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually attributed to insolence or smartness.
As the Inquisition proceeded, one of his instructors repeated an impertinent remark of the boys, and the principal asked him whether he thought that to be a courteous speech to have made to a woman.
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