"ESTHER FRIESNER - Why I want to come to Brewer College" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

As one of our ancient philosophers once said, we are not merely humble but efficient. Why dig a hole for a new well from which to slake your thirst if you find a perfectly good one already awaiting you? I hope you catch my drift, for to be more specific would be unseemly, vulgar, and more suitable to an application for Harvard.
President Franklin is not brawny, but can exhibit unprecedented bursts of strength. I had barely taken my first sip of his blood when he erupted from beneath me like a breaching whale and flung himself desperately toward the bank. Dean Hansen had by this time somewhat recovered her self-possession and waded into the shallows to assist him. She clutched me firmly with both hands and, while her lover pulled forward, she dug in her heels and held back. My suction- hold on President Franklin was strong, but not equal to such a strain. It broke with a popping sound that was all but drowned out by my would-be victim's scream. President Franklin collapsed face-first onto the shore while Dean Hansen and I tumbled backward into the water.
I regained my footing in the pond just in time to see President Franklin sprinting away into the darkness and was immediately inspired to compose a haiku upon the image of the setting moon. Unfortunately, this delicate verse was blown from my head like a plum blossom by the gale of profanity blasting from the lips of the divine Dean Hansen.
"Will you look at that son-of-a-bitch run?" she declaimed. (Noble Sirs, I know you will excuse the inclusion of expletives in my unworthy application. I merely transcribe the words of another, for the sake of accuracy. I have dwelled among Americans long enough to learn that you value truth above good manners.) "He didn't so much as wait two seconds to see if maybe I could use some help! Not even one goddam second to say 'Thank you for getting this giant leech off my butt,' the skanky, pencil-dicked bastard!"
She proceeded in this vein for some time. Ah, Noble Sirs, what a refutation of Keats was there! Beauty is Truth, but Dean Hansen's harsh judgment against President Franklin effectively negated all possibility of Truth being Beauty. When at last she paused for breath it was to behold me regarding her with deep and abiding awe.
"What are you staring at?" she demanded of me. Here was even greater cause for astonishment on my part, for I am, as I have already described myself to you, of a unique aspect vis-с-vis human beings. For the second time in my life, I found myself confronting a person who did not flee in terror at the sight of me. Fascinated, I took a step toward her.
Dean Hansen misinterpreted my approach as that of a hostile predator. Naked as she was, she dived for her purse, discarded with the rest of her clothing upon the shore, and pulled out a small, cylindrical object which she unwrapped instantly, revealing its snowy inner purity. Whatever it was, she regarded it as a talisman of great power, for she declaimed: "Stay back or this goes right into that pothole full of pond water on your head! I'm warning you, it's super- absorbent; it sucks up faster than Fergie on one of his alumni fund-raising sprees."
I drew back, startled by the lady's belligerence but more so by her obvious knowledge. She recognized me! She knew me for what I was and knew also how to defeat me! What wonder was this?
"Oh, stop gawking," Dean Hansen said. "I used to teach Asian Studies. I know you're a kappa. What I'd like to know is why in hell you're hanging around this dump?"
Her erudition impressed me almost to the point of inspiring a reverent bow, but I caught myself just in time. Humbly I replied, "Honored Lady, my original purpose for being here has long since passed away. Now I remain within the precincts of this beloved institution solely for the love of learning." I proceeded to render her in full the same account of my life which I have presented to you, Noble Sirs, during the course of which she used President Franklin's clothing wherewith to dry herself before redonning her own.
When I was done, Dean Hansen's fair face assumed a thoughtful look. "All those years and we never knew," she said softly, as though speaking for herself alone. "The stories about all those missing Yalies...." She cut short her musings and made a small sound of disgust. "Bah! I've got bigger problems. What am I going to do with you? Sell you to the Enquirer? God knows we could use the money."
"Brewer College is in financial difficulty?" I asked.
"In hock up to the eyeballs. We used to be something, a real bastion of higher learning. Now we're a name. Oh sure, you can trade on a name-brand college, lure in the status-hungry rubes, make the parents think they're getting the whole teatime-white-gloves-polo-ponies crap that went out with the fifties, but it doesn't last forever. Not unless you're Princeton. And the real cash cows are the alumni, not the tuition-paying chumps. What's four years of income compared to a lifetime?"
Her words were harsh, but her eyes were soft with a deep grief. Dean Hansen's love for Brewer College is sincere, as is mine, and her unspoken sorrow shattered my heart.
"What have I done?" I cried with utmost remorse. "All these years I have enjoyed a Brewer education yet never once have I made the smallest effort to repay this wondrous place, to secure its future! Oh, I am truly the leech that you paint me! I cannot live with this knowledge." So saying, I snatched the cottony talisman from Dean Hansen's hand and immersed it smartly into the water atop my head. Its powers of absorbency were as promised: It swiftly sopped up that sustaining moisture to the last drop whereupon I collapsed, gasping.
Yes, Noble Sirs, what you must surmise is true: I sought to die. I acted with deliberation and resolve, desiring that death expunge dishonor. If I am now alive to write this, my unworthy petition, it is solely thanks to the benevolence of your Dean Hansen.
I confess that her kindness was of a different style than that of my long-departed princess. Picking me up roughly by the neck and tail apertures of my shell, she treated me in the manner of a fire bucket, scooping me face first through the waters of the pond, then setting me down on the bank with a mighty thump once she had thus refilled my cranial indentation.
"Don't you ever do anything that stupid again!" she commanded. "That was my last tam -- Oh, never mind. Look, if you honestly believe you've cheated Brewer by bootlegging lessons, then all I've got to say is killing yourself is one hell of a lousy way to settle up."
I was deeply abashed by this insightful reprimand and said, "Honored Lady, how can I then repay the college? I have no money, or else I would gladly provide you with tuition for all the years of learning I have stolen. My only means of personal support is --"
She raised one hand to silence me. "I know how you sustain yourself," she said. "And with all due respect, it's an image I'd rather not invite home to Mama. Okay, so you got a Brewer College education for free, but it took you the better part of a century to do it. That's almost like being a Comp. Lit. graduate student, which was Fergie's calling before he married the Dragon Lady and fell into this little plum pie. Now he's a glorified telephone solicitor, shaking down the alums when he isn't sucking ...up...to...."
Her words trailed off, her anger waned, her glance fell upon me. The fire in her eyes faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression. "Little kappa," she said, "how would you like to do something really useful for Brewer College?"
Thus, Noble Sirs, does my humble application for admission come before you, backed by the patronage of your own exalted Dean, Miss Cecilia Hansen. In this she has the full support of President Franklin, with whom I have made my peace and whom she has brought to see the advantage of having me as a Brewer student. They might have used their combined power to effect my matriculation without your instrumentality, but I refused, even though their intervention most effectively would have obliterated certain unhappy lacunae in my academic record, such as my lack of a high school diploma. If I am to gain entry to this fine academy, it must be done through the proper channels, on my own merit.
Yet I must become a student of Brewer College, Noble Sirs. I must, although I doubt there is anything left in your curriculum which I have not apprehended already, over the years. (As many of your students and their parents know, it is not the actual scholarship one acquires at college that counts for half so much as the diploma one receives. Wise men abound who have devoted their lives to self-education, but the common people still stand awestruck when an otherwise cloddish witling declares before them, "I went to Yale.") I must, I say, because only one who has successfully completed your course of study and been awarded an official degree may legitimately call himself a Brewer College alumnus.
Only an alumnus may become an alumni representative.
Only an alumni representative may solicit funds for the furtherance of Brewer College from his fellow alumni.
Only the most successful alumni representatives know how to get the largest donations from their prey, which Dean Hansen refers to as the fine art of getting blood from a stone.
I know this art well, though it is from softer sources that I am accustomed to extracting blood. But I am open-minded, and adaptable, and I believe that given five minutes alone with any of your wealthier alumni I could call forth from them hitherto unheard-of generosity, given the alternative I would offer:
Brewer graduates, Open your checkbooks or die. Such a simple choice! And that is why I want to come to Brewer College.