For a moment, Ferald was silent.
“A Jew,” I repeated.
Ferald regarded me curiously. “Good day, Van Tassel,” he said.
I hardly remember my drive to the college. I parked the motorcar on the lawn and made my way into Chandler Hall to my classroom. I entered the populated chamber (I was late) and sat with weakened legs at my desk. After a time, I glanced up at the young, expectant faces before me.
I did not recognize a soul, not a single one of the astonished visages.
I sat in an attitude of perplexity for some time, the baffled students waiting for a pronouncement. I could think of no words with which to address them. Had I had a stroke, I wondered? Had an occlusion of a blood vessel caused this hideous memory lapse, this quaking in my limbs?
A figure stood in the doorway, and I turned my head. It was Owen Ellington, a junior faculty member. He carried a cup of tea and he, too, looked somewhat perplexed, though kindly so.
“Professor Van Tassel,” he said. “What a pleasure. What can I do for you?”
I may have offered a greeting. I stood and collected my briefcase. Ellington moved aside, and I stepped out into the hallway. For an uncertain moment, I did not know in which direction to head.
With deliberately careful strides, I went in search of my own classroom. I could think of little but the humiliating scene I had just endured at Ferald’s house. What recourse did I have? Could I not tender an appeal? Yes, I thought, I could do that. I would do that at once. Surely I had more respect than Ferald did among the faculty. And yet… and yet…to bring such an accusation to the notice of the college might end in catastrophe for me. I leaned against a wall. I knew only too well what such a revelation might do to my career.
I found my classroom and entered it. I walked to the desk and sat in the chair. I looked up at my restless and impatient students, who doubtless wondered how it was that Professor Van Tassel had aged so much since just the week before.
As I drove to the settlement house, I felt strangely calm. Familiar with both the Stevens-Duryea and the road, I felt as if I reached Norfolk Street in no time at all. It was not my intention to go inside Baker House, however, or even to make myself known. What I sought that day was invisibility.
I parked in a clearing behind a stand of oaks that had not yet lost their leaves. I did not believe I could be seen from the house, since I could barely make out the building itself; nor did I think I could be detected from the road. I did not want Etna to know that I was there.
A boy on his bicycle and a man in a rough tweed coat and cloth cap walked past without seeing me. Apart from these two souls, I noted no other person during the hour or more I waited in the clearing. Exhausted from the events of the morning as well as my sleepless night, I believe I may have dozed off for a time. I started when I heard a faint sound: a voice, two voices, one of which I recognized. Sitting up, I saw that Etna had emerged from one of the front doors. I watched her call good-bye to a person who remained behind and then walk to her coupe.
I had not thought beyond this point, nor did I know how I should behave. Was I now to follow my own wife like a common detective? And how was this to be accomplished without her knowing I was behind her? The absurdity of this venture pressed itself upon me, and I nearly got out of the car to call to her as I saw her reversing out the driveway. It did not matter now about the strange cottage, I thought. I simply needed to speak with my wife. She would know what I should do in the matter of Edward Ferald and the post. At the very least, she would comfort me.
Almost immediately, however, I lost sight of Etna. I was confident I could again find the cottage, but in this I was mistaken. In trailing her in the rain the day before, I had apparently taken two turns I had not remembered. Thus I discovered myself on an unknown road in a heavily wooded area. I stopped the car and got out to look around, thinking there might be a clue in the clear afternoon. There was nothing, and I had no choice but to travel on, hoping to encounter a farmer who could tell me where I was. I did this for another twenty minutes, until I happened upon a small house set a bit back from the road. I knocked at the front door and was told by a slightly startled woman that I was in Vermont. Vermont! When had I crossed over the Connecticut River? The woman wasn’t entirely sure how to direct me onto the main highway, but she was able to give me directions to a general store at which I received further directions. My nerves frayed to the point of disintegration, I crossed back over the river and made my way to Drury, the town in which I had seen Etna at the cottage.
It took me nearly half an hour more to find the estate. I should have to buy a road map, I determined. I parked as I had done the day previous and approached the house, walking not as boldly as I had done before, but rather keeping to the edge of the woods. I slipped silently toward the cottage, in plain view should Etna have happened to glance out the window. But she did not.