Introduction to Paul: Temperament, Family, and School Conflicts

Apuntes

McClure's Magazine by Willa Sibert Cather From McClure's Magazine, 25 (May 1905): 74-83. PAUL'S CASE A STUDY IN TEMPERAMENT BY WILLA SIBERT CATHER I IT was Paul's afternoon to appear before the faculty of the Pittsburg High School to account for his various misdemeanors. He had been suspended a week ago, and his father had called at the principal's oce and confessed his perplexity about his son. Paul entered the faculty room, suave and smiling. His clothes were a trie outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but, for all that, there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four- in-hand, and a red carnation in his buttonhole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly signicant of the contrite spirit betting a boy under the ban of suspension. Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest. His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical brilliancy, and he continually used them in a conscious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly oensive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, as though he were addicted to belladonna, but the...