90
PARTISAN REVIEW
and warm? He could at least delay and, by moving slowly, lend a poor
grace to the necessary, ugly act of making his report.
It was with some notion of keeping the matter in his own hands that
he went to the Dean's office to look up Tertan's records. In the outer
office the Dean's secretary greeted him brightly and at his request brought
him the manila folder with the small identifying photograph pasted
in
the corner. She laughed. "He was looking for the birdie in the wrong
place," she said.
Howe leaned over her shoulder to look at the picture. It was as had
as all the Dean's·office photographs were, but it differed from all that
Howe had ever seen. Tertan, instead of looking into the camera, as no
doubt he had been bidden, had, at the moment of exposure, turned his
eyes upward. His mouth, as though conscious of the trick played on the
photographer, had the sly superior look that Howe knew.
The secretary was fascinated by the picture. "What a funny boy,"
she said. "He looks like Tartuffe!"
And so he did, with the absurd piety of the eyes and the conscious
slyness of the mouth and the whole face bloated by the bad lens.
"Is he
like
that?" the secretary said.
"Like Tartuffe? No."
From the photograph there was little enough comfort to
he
had.
The records themselves gave no clue to madness, though they suggested
sadness enough. Howe read of a father, Stanislaus Tertan, born
in
Budapesth and trained in engineering in Berlin, once employed by the
Hercules Chemical Corporation-this was one of the factories that domi·
nated the sound end of the town-but now without employment. He read
of a mother Erminie (Youngfellow) Tertan, horn in Manchester, edu·
cated at a Normal School at Leeds, now housewife by profession. The
family lived on Greenbriar Street which Howe knew as a row of once
elegant homes near what was now the factory district. The old mansions
had long ago been divided into small and primitive apartments.
Of
Ferdinand himself there was little to learn. He lived with his parents,
had attended a D'etroit high school and had transferred to the local
school in his last year. His rating for intelligence, as expressed in num·
hers, was high, his scholastic record was remarkable, he held a college
scholarship for his tutition.
Howe laid the folder on the secretary's desk. "Did you find what
you wanted to know?" she asked.
The phrases from Tertan's momentous first theme came hack to him.
"Tertan I am, but what is Tertan? Of this time, of that place, of some
parentage, what does it matter?"
"No, I didn't find it," he said.
Now that he had consulted the sad half-meaningless record he
knew
all the more firmly that he must not give the matter out of his own
hands. He must not release Tertan to authority. Not that he anticipated
from the Dean anything hut the greatest kindness for Tertan. The Dean
