The Professor's House

Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the source text’s depiction of suicidal ideation and the misappropriation of indigenous culture.

One morning in September, Professor Godfrey St. Peter walks through the house where he has lived for over 20 years while raising his two daughters and completing his eight-volume scholarly work, Spanish Adventurers in North America. Most of the house is empty; the final two volumes of Spanish Adventurers won him an award that came with enough money to enable him to build a new home. Although the inconveniences and imperfections of the old house are even more evident without the family’s belongings, St. Peter is reluctant to move. His gaze lingers on the French-style garden he cultivated over two decades, remembering the conversations he’d had there with his most brilliant student, Tom Outland. The only room that has not been emptied is the low-ceilinged attic that has served St. Peter as his study. The room is small and dark, heated by a gas stove that requires the window to be propped open whenever it is in use. Still, it has served as his intellectual headquarters, the one place in his house where he could remain above domestic and social affairs.