80
PARTISAN REVIEW
It was easy to understand why Woolley had chosen to praise
Thomas Wormser. The long, lilting lines of
Com Under Willows
hymned, as Woolley put it, the struggle for wheat in the Iowa
fields and expressed the real lives of real people. But why out
of the dozen more notable examples he had chosen Howe's little
volume as the example of "precious subjectivism" was hard to
guess. In a way it was funny, this multiplication of himself into
"the Howes." And yet this becoming the multiform political
symbol by whose creation Frederic Woolley gave the sign of a
sudden new life, this use of him as a sacrifice whose blood was
necessary for the rites of rejuvenation, made him feel oddly
unclean.
Nor could Howe get rid of a certain practical resentment.
As a poet he had a special and respectable place in the college
life. But it might
be
another thing to b{:; marked as the poet of
a wilful and selfish obscurity.
As he walked to the Bradbys' Howe was a little tense and
defensive.
It
seemed to him that all the world knew of the "attack"
and agreed with it. And indeed the Bradbys had read the essay
but Professor Bradby, a kind and pretentious man, said, "I see
my old friend knocked you about a bit, my boy," and his wife
Eugenia looked at Howe with her childlike blue eyes and said,
·'I shall
scoU
Frederic for the untrue things he wrote about you.
You
aren't the least obscure." They beamed at him. In their
genial snobbery they seemed to feel that he had distinguished
himself. He was the leader of Howeism. He enjoyed the dinner·
party as much as he had thought he would.
And in the following days, as he was more preoccupied with
his duties, the incident was forgotten. His classes had ceased to
be mere groups. Student after student detached himself from the
mass and required or claimed a place in Howe's awareness. Of
them all it was Tertan who first and most violently signalled his
separate existence. A week after classes had begun Howe saw his
silhouette on the frosted glass of his office door. It was motionless
for a long time, perhaps stopped by the problem of whether or
not to knock before entering. Howe called, "Come in!" and
fertan entered with his shambling stride.
He stood beside the desk, silent and at attention. When
Howe asked him to sit down, he responded with a gesture of head
