As the semester unfolded, Julia was under tremendous pressure to complete her thesis, and Katherine Picton was pushing her to submit chapters more quickly. Quicker chapters would make it easier to speak more specifically about Julia’s abilities to Greg Matthews, the Chair of the Department of Romance Languages at Harvard, should he follow up on her reference letter.
Julia couldn’t concentrate when Gabriel was around. Her voice grew soft when she told him why. Something about blue eyes and sexual pyrotechnics and a chemistry that vibrated in the air between them, all of which kept her from focusing on the tasks at hand. Gabriel was extremely flattered.
So the happy couple worked out a compromise. There would be telephone calls and texts and the occasional Gmail, but apart from a lunch or dinner during the week, Julia would stay at her apartment. On Friday afternoons she would arrive at Gabriel’s in order to spend the weekend with him.
One Wednesday evening in mid-January, Julia called Gabriel after her homework was done.
“I had a rough day,” she said, sounding tired.
“What happened?”
“Professor Picton is making me scrap about three-quarters of one of my chapters because she thinks I’m offering a Romanticized version of Dante.”
“Ouch.”
“She hates the Romantics, so you can imagine how annoyed she was. She went on and on about it. She makes me feel stupid.”
“You aren’t stupid.” Gabriel chuckled into the phone. “Professor Picton makes me feel stupid sometimes.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You should have seen me the first time I was summoned to her house. I was more nervous than I was on the day I defended my dissertation. I almost forgot to wear pants.”
Julia laughed. “I can only imagine that a pantless Professor Emerson would be very well received.”
“Thankfully, I didn’t have to find out.”
“Professor Picton told me that ‘my strong work ethic makes up for my occasional lapses in reasoning.’”
“That’s high praise coming from her. She thinks most people fail to reason at all. The way she describes the world today, most people are monkeys who happen to wear clothes. On occasion.”
Julia groaned, rolling onto her stomach. “Would it kill her to tell me that she likes my thesis? Or that I’m doing a good job?”
“Katherine will never tell you that she likes your thesis. She thinks positive feedback is patronizing. This is simply the way those old, pretentious Oxonians are.”
“You aren’t like that, Professor Emerson.”
Gabriel found himself twitching at the mere change in her tone.
“Oh, yes I am, Miss Mitchell. You’ve simply forgotten.”
“You’re sweet with me now.”
“I should hope so,” he whispered, his voice almost breaking. “But remember, you’re my lover, not my student.” He grinned wickedly. “Except in the ways of love.”
She laughed, and he found himself laughing with her.
“I finished the book you lent me, A Severe Mercy.”
“That was quick. How did you manage that?”
“I’m loneliest at night. I’ve been reading to help me fall asleep.”
“You have no reason to be lonely. Take a cab to my place. I’ll keep you company.”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Yes, Professor.”
“Okay, Miss Mitchell. So how was the book?”
“I’m not sure why Grace liked it so much.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s a romantic love story. But when they became Christians, they decided their love for each other was pagan—that they’d made idols of one another. That made me sad.”
“I’m sorry it saddened you. I haven’t read it, although Grace used to talk about it.”
“How could love be pagan, Gabriel? I don’t understand.”
“You’re asking me that question? I thought I was the pagan in this relationship.”
“You aren’t a pagan. You told me so yourself.”
He sighed thoughtfully. “So I did. You know as well as I that Dante views God as the only thing in the universe who can satisfy the longings of the soul. This is Dante’s implicit critique of Paolo and Francesca’s sin. They forego a higher good—the love of God—for the love of a human being. Of course, that’s a sin.”
“Paolo and Francesca were adulterers. They shouldn’t have fallen in love with each other in the first place.”
“That’s true. But even if they were unmarried lovers, Dante’s criticism would be the same. If they love one another to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, then their love is pagan. They’ve made idols of one another and their love. And they’re also very foolish, because no human being can ever make another human being completely happy. Human beings are far too imperfect for that.”