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It was a chill October morning, with the first hint of frost in the air, as Andrew Fitzpaine Wyld rose jauntily from his slumbers. He folded back the sheet and took toast and crumpets with relish, as he glanced an eye over the morning paper. However, his mind was elsewhere, for he had weighty matters to concern him—for he was an undergraduate at that hallowed institution, King's College, Cambridge, and today he was to begin tackling the course in Linear Maths—an advanced course, and one which promised to tax his powers of mental agility.
Distractedly, he dressed in a suit of dark serge with a plum cravat—a touch of colour in an austere ground. A cursory glance in the mirror satisfied him, and then he set forth, tossing a halfpenny to the cheery bedder as she whistled a ribald song and emptied the ash from the grate. "Gor bless you, sir," she exclaimed toothlessly. "Gor bless you!"
Walking through the quiet morning streets of Cambridge, he greeted Joachim Perkins, the former grammar-school boy he had befriended the previous term. Perkins was only the son of a tailor, but his mind was of the very finest mettle—indeed, his scholarship was the highest Cambridge had offered that year. Men great in spirit recognise their equals whatever their origins, and a natural, easy friendship had kindled between the pair as they "roughed it" among the strange new world which formed the backdrop to their studies.
As they strolled towards the art school lecture house, passing the Greek pastry-seller on the corner ("the finest baklava in East Anglia for you, my beautiful young sir!"), a palpable sense of history overcame them. Great discoveries had been made in these buildings; the very stones were redolent with the promise of intellect, and the hope—distant, yet piquant in its potency—of greatness, one day—greatness which belonged to the world, enriched by a great thought.
Ah, yes! And yet Wyld could not help feeling a sense of foreboding as they entered the lecture theatre; he shrugged it off, however, as apprehension as a new subject was broached, or perhaps a moment of cold in his spine from a draught—perhaps from a window opened in fervour thirty or more years before in a fit of discovery by some hero of the modern world, and left untended by the lofty souls who haunted these rooms, their minds untainted by thoughts of mere windows.
At that moment, the lecturer walked in. Neither he nor Perkins could suppress a shudder on contemplating the man. He was of the middle height, with a thick, swart countenance, circular spectacles, a rough, unshaven chin and dark eyebrows. While obviously a foreigner, yet there was nothing in his figure or dress which would be repellent to the civilised man, for his appearance in these respects was by no means exceptional—especially in a University which attracted the foremost men, not only of Europe, but the entire globe. What chilled the marrow was the man's expression. An insolent smirk played around his lips, but his eyes held a malevolent glare of low, brutish passion and raw animal cunning.
He opened his mouth to speak, and as one man, the assembled students fell silent.
"Hello, and welcome to the Linear Maths course," he began, his heavily-accented English suggesting some Slavic origin. "Linear maths is a very useful subject, with many applications in group theory and quantum mechanics. In fact, it forms the entire basis of group theory, and paves the way for metric spaces to come. It is a very useful subject—but not very interesting. In fact, it's rather boring, but you have to do it—so we might as well get on with it."
Wyld stared, slack-jawed in horror—a lecturer, a high-priest at the altar of knowledge, had declared the subject he was to teach them uninteresting—worse, boring! What heresies would follow? The lecturer's voice droned like a mantra as Wyld turned to Perkins, and the pair shared a Look. There were no words—none were necessary. Both knew well what the other was thinking.
The lecture passed, as things will, and Wyld and Perkins left in a daze. Their next two lectures—one on mechanics and one on probability—passed without event, except that old Professor Canduncanly had one of his coughing fits in the middle of the definition of moment of momentum. Perkins scarcely noticed, however, even when a gobbet of phlegm struck his lapel, so preoccupied was he with the earlier events. Wyld, equally distracted, continued taking notes after their last lecture had ended, his fingers acting out the fervid undercurrents of his mind.
They conferred over luncheon, a light repast of cold cuts and tea. Perkins's lofty brow furrowed in cogitation, as though a thought were ploughing methodically back and forth across his forehead, in search of its conclusion—leaving a trail of fertile inspirations behind it.
"The crucial thing," began Perkins, "is to estimate the risk of a recurrence of the events of this morning." He began cutting a slice of ham into triangular segments radiating from a common centre, as though defining his words in meat. "Let us suppose that the course is, as he says, commonplace and of little interest. Well and good. But to re-assert this fact would demoralize us and predispose us to a lacklustre performance in the Tripos." Wyld imagined Perkins as a potential Senior Wrangler hampered by a horror of linearity, and nodded his wholehearted assent.
"It seems obvious, then," continued Perkins, "that our course must be contingent on three factors—the likelihood of his repeating this assertion, the deleterious effect to us should he do so, and the probable effect, beneficial or harmful, should we ignore all he says and attempt to make good the lost ground from a written text."
"I agree," said Wyld, "but it seems to me that your remarks, dear fellow, still ignore the harm that may be done to the other students. Some may not have our options, and may flounder."
The good-hearted Perkins sat aghast at his omission. That noble mind was not long susceptible of despair, however, and his forehead was ploughed afresh as he quickly recovered with a new plan.
"You are right, my dear friend, of course; we have a responsibility to prevent the discouragement of the others. It will be necessary to observe Dr. Corto's[1] behaviour further, I fear, before we may form some effective remedy."
At the thought of further observation, both young men shuddered involuntarily, and Perkins's brow seemed to take on the aspect of a terraced vineyard. They had only two days to wait for their opportunity, and neither student relished the prospect.
Wyld departed from his room, full of dread anticipation. He barely noticed the bedder drinking gin from the coal scuttle; his usual halfpenny to the good woman became a sixpence, and her customary expression of gratitude was stifled by her astonishment. She made a resolution to beat this excellent young man's rugs until they sparkled, and with this domestic conflation carefully noted, she went to the buttery and purchased a quart of port and a chamber pot.
Wyld met Perkins at the Porter's Lodge. Perkins's aspect clearly showed his apprehension, to the extent that an unwary gull tried briefly to perch halfway up his forehead. They set out for the lecture theatre, and entered in silence; they were unable to avoid noticing that not a single student broke that silence by any utterance, and the only sound was of muffled breathing and the chance fall of a book from some poor fellow's fingers. The undergraduates seemed to be smaller today—at any rate, they took up less space, leaving the theatre a quarter empty.
Dr. Corto entered, scowling, as though contemplating some deliberate malice done him by the world in general, and undergraduates in particular. He brightened visibly when he noticed the empty space in the theatre, and began his lecture almost at once.
His voice exerted a hypnotic effect on his audience. His tone was moderated and calm, yet had he screamed, shouted, invoked the devil and all his demons by name, even conjured his students to drink blood, they could not have regarded him with greater horror.
Suddenly, without warning, he paused. "Can anyone tell me the additive identity for this field?" he demanded, a malicious glint in his eye.
The students were cowed, but a strange fatality seemed to take the arm of one lad and raise it above his head. Wyld and Perkins watched, transfixed, as Corto pointed at the boy—"you!"
The boy stammered out an answer—right in essence, but ignoring an important detail. For an inexperienced mathematician, the error was excusable. Corto's smirk widened. "Ah, no," he said ....
He then proceeded to compare the poor trembling boy, unfavourably, with a schoolboy of six who cannot do long multiplication. The harangue was, they had to admit, a bravura performance, and left no aspect of the youth's appearance, likely proclivities, or hereditary misfortunes intact. However, the monologue failed to take in the minor correction which would have completed the lad's answer, and as such was profoundly unenlightening.
This time, as they left, Perkins and Wyld sought out the misfortunate young man and plied him carefully with pastries. Somehow, they knew that this young man was not the first to have been subjected to such unnecessary ridicule, nor would he be the last. But there would be a last, some day—and as soon as they could contrive it, too.