Jeunesse dorée

The late spring on campus, with its fragrant verdure, its tidal wave of pressured work, and its round of special ceremonies and parties, becomes ever more poignant as I approach retirement.

Houseparties time is particularly bittersweet. I get to admire the gorgeous gowns en passant, but live far enough away from the Street to hear the music only as distant alarms.

Late last Friday afternoon, finding myself on the southwest corner of campus, I took advantage of the parking-lot shuttle to get back to McCosh. As we moved lazily up the Elm Drive hill I suddenly saw large numbers of beautiful young people beautifully arrayed, the men sleek in their tuxedos, the women panchromatic and gauzy. Indeed I spotted among the gaggle of golden youth walking up the steepish bit of blacktop between Brown and the back of the Art Museum, along the path that runs through Prospect Garden, then past Frist to the top of Prospect Avenue, a student I know fairly well. Though he plays only an accidental and catalytic role in this reverie, I shall name him. It was David Robinson, my former boss on this editorial page. He and the beautiful young woman who was his companion were engaged in animated conversation and wholly oblivious of such ecological blights as are offered by an alley defined by parked cars and overflowing garbage dumpsters at the corner of Brown Hall.

Now David is a Rhodes Scholar-elect who will be "going up" to Oxford in the autumn. I had followed his progress through the Rhodes competition with interest, and like so many others delighted in his success. There are numerous thoughts, some weighty, others frivolous, that a glimpse of David might trigger in the Lockean chaos of my undisciplined brain. We had some interesting editorial scrapes last year. He presented me, a teetotaler, with a bottle of expensive whiskey in superfluous gratitude for the supposed efficacy of a letter of recommendation. A mere forty-five years earlier I had been treading in his winged sandals. But none of those thoughts occurred. The thought that did occur was that David was wearing a dinner jacket, and I was not.

What I mean more precisely was that on the following night, Saturday, I was scheduled to attend the sumptuous "Behrman Awards" banquet, Princeton's annual celebration of achievement in the humanities. On the elegant invitation are printed the words "Black-tie optional" — words I read without terror, for it so happens that I am a man opulent in "black ties." I have not one tuxedo, but two. Yet the realization precipitated by a glance through the bus window was that one of them is presently in lower Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn.

The explanation of this eventuality, while wholly convincing and satisfactory, falls outside the scope of my essay. The fact that falls within its scope is that I, a veritable mogul of black ties, would have either to get on a train pronto or to show up at the Oscars of the Intellectuals wearing a dark suit and a floral silk tie. The technical legal term for this sort of choice is, I believe, "no contest." So, accompanied by a life-partner trying to pretend that she didn't know me, I made the scene at Prospect House attired in the fashion of an insurance salesman.

It is embarrassing for a grown man to have to parade his demeaning petty bourgeois anxieties in this way, but the first and sternest demand of Art is honesty. Fortunately, Art also saved me. The two award winners this year were the philosopher John Cooper and the sculptor Jim Seawright. Quite apart from their outstanding achievements, they are two of the nicest men on campus; and I have long enjoyed a modest but admiring acquaintance with each.

So the substance of the evening was guaranteed to match the spectacularity of the food. Each winner had a number of special guests, and this meant that scattered through the dining room were numerous philosophers and numerous artists.

I had hoped that at least one of the philosophers would be wearing a barrel, or perhaps burlap rags, thus putting me at ease; but today's philosophers don't wear barrels. The one next to me, at least, had real gold cufflinks and a bright satin cummerbund. Among the guest artists, however, were a sprinkling of New York types sufficiently loyal to their farouche and bohemian ancestors as to adopt a decidedly postmodern attitude toward formal attire. In comparison with a motorcycle jacket, my pinstriped worsted picked up for seven bucks at the Trinity Church rummage sale was immediately rendered centrist classic. John V. Fleming is the Louis W. Fairchild '24 professor of English. His column appears on Mondays.