The Professor's House

St. Peter reflects on the contingencies that have shaped his life and identity. Among all of these accidents, meeting Tom had been the most “fantastic” and unexpected, bringing what St. Peter now realizes was a “second youth.” Tom had helped St. Peter with his scholarly work on the Spanish Adventurers, lending his lived experience and insights to St. Peter’s research. They had even visited the Cliff City on the Blue Mesa together to retrieve Tom’s diary. They had planned a trip to Paris, but the war intervened. Father Duchene visited Hamilton on his way to serve in any capacity he could in Belgium. Four days later, Tom drew up his will and left with his teacher. St. Peter wonders what Tom would have been like had he not died so young, but he can’t picture Tom in the same “conventional” world as everybody else.

While his family is in France, St. Peter slowly annotates Tom’s Blue Mesa diary. He spends a lot of time admiring nature or daydreaming. In ruminating about Tom, St. Peter begins “cultivating a novel mental dissipation—and enjoying a new friendship” with “the boy the Professor had long ago left behind him in Kansas, in the Solomon Valley—the original, unmodified Godfrey St.