My breakfast arrived. I ate without noticing, reading through the whole thing again more slowly, and then yet again, wondering what under the sun I’d stumbled into. It was a pitiful letter, there was no mistaking that, but there was also something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, an elusive hint of anger, at very least an edge of nastiness.
The letter had a repeatedly-copied-over look. Considering its length, the professor must have worked at it half the night. On the final page there was a telephone number and the word unlisted, underlined twice, then directions to his house, somewhere on the outskirts of the city.
I had at first no intention of accepting the invitation. I was scheduled to fly down to Chicago that afternoon — I had a lecture in two days, and a number of old friends I was hoping to visit, former colleagues at Northwestern — and even if I were free, it was clear that the invitation had caused Sven Agaard such distress, such a torture of close reasoning on morality and social responsibility, that to accept might well be the act of (there it was again, that ridiculous, empty word) a monster. On the other hand, I thought — frowning and pressing my fingertips together — the letter had something like an anguished plea in it. Perhaps, for all his apology and hesitation, and in spite of the hint of ridded wrath that escaped him, the old man was urgently hoping I’d visit. He was not an immediately likeable person, but distress is distress.
These last few words I spoke aloud, a thing I sometimes do when I’m reasoning with myself, and, realizing that I’d done so, I glanced around at my fellow diners. Only a head or two had turned; otherwise, no one had heard or cared, all happily occupied with their own affairs. I stoked up and lit my pipe to ponder the matter further, think it out properly, fair-mindedly. After all, my lecture had in some way touched the old man, I thought, or he’d never have written such a letter. For my conscience’s sake, if nothing else, I must decide this matter on some basis more solid than whim.
I sat for several minutes, smoking and drinking tea, weighing the matter on this side and that. If Professor Agaard really was in need of advice, as he’d suggested — if he really had made, as he’d said, “grave mistakes”—it seemed unlikely that he’d get help from the colleagues who’d responded to him with such indifference, if not hostility, at the party. Considering all the trouble I’d put him through — his embarrassment last night, his labor over the letter — perhaps refusing him would be the worst thing I could do. I could hardly deny that I was curious, in a way; not wildly curious, but curious enough to take some risks, no question about it.
Then another thought struck me: Had the old man approached me and spoken to me, and then afterward written, because in fact — or partly — he disliked me, despised, as some people do, my rather hopeful view of things? Was he one of those too numerous so-called “hard” historians who seethe at the very mention of psycho-history? In my irrational bones I had a feeling it was so. The idea, naturally, made me cross for an instant. I have always tried to be, so far as I know how, a just man, not needlessly unkind. Life itself may be unfair — I’ve never denied it — but how odd that I, a stranger just passing through, as the folk songs say, should be held responsible! Very well, I thought, no reason to go see him. Sorry, Iago, I’m dining with my wife.
On the other hand, of course, he was, or had been once, a superb historian in the high, thin-aired field I myself did my earliest work in, thirty-some years ago — a man I’d have been honored to serve, if I could. … Abruptly, rising to pay my check, I decided to postpone my trip to Chicago and go see him, possibly meet his son.
I made some phone calls — one to my wife, one to Jack Jr. (who teaches English at Whittier), one to the airport, several to friends, and one, finally, to Agaard to say that I was happy to accept. He suggested — a certain odd distance in his voice, a sound like sea-roar or wind behind him — that I come at about three.
Around noon, a heavy snowfall began, so heavy that by eight that evening, though of course I didn’t know it at the time, the whole country would be transformed, the Madison airport socked in. At 2:15 I checked out of my room and, carrying the only bag I had with me — a small, old-fashioned one, the kind one associates with the visits of country doctors — hailed a cab. All through the city and out into the suburbs the driver grumbled about the weather, the inefficiency of the snow-removal people, the self-interest and stupidity of politicians. “One of these days,” he said again and again, hunched like a wrestler over the steeringwheel, speaking so grimly you’d have thought he was referring to some definite group and plan; then he’d clamp his mouth shut, letting the matter drop. The motor pinged and clattered, the fenders rattled, the broken shock absorbers banged with every bump as we flew up toward Agaard’s. I sat forward, smiling and nodding with interest, elbows on my knees, straining to hear above the noise of the cab as if the driver’s anger might give me some clue to what awaited me at the professor’s. Absurd, of course. The driver was a thoroughly socialized, perfectly normal human being. Every word he spoke he’d said hundreds of times before to his hard-up, slow-witted family and friends, who agreed with him completely.
We came to a sparsely wooded area, a section with which the driver was unfamiliar. Every few blocks — or rather, every few crossroads — he would pull off the road, roll down his window, and lean out, squinting, trying to see what the sign said. It was clear that he resented being out here in the country. Every vehicle we passed was a Jeep or a pickup truck, and in every driveway, or so it seemed, some dog raged, mad-eyed and snarling, feinting at our tires. At last he found the road sign he was after and, since he’d slightly passed it, angrily hit the steeringwheel, then backed up, spinning as if punishing the car for its stupidity, and we made our turn. We ascended a knoll — the woods were thicker here; dark, still pines, all strangely tall — and made out, on our right, a few lighted windows pale as fog, and a huge, vague outline like the prow of a ship — Professor Agaard’s house.
The driver stopped the cab. “What is it,” he said, “insane asylum?”
“It belongs to a university professor,” I told him.
The driver scowled up at it, taking a cigarette from the pack on the dashboard. “I thought so,” he said. He glanced at me, appraising, then back at the house. “Damn if I’m going up the driveway. No way.”