The History Man

'Don't let him off the hook,' says Howard, punitive. 'There's a lot more missing than that. All of sociology and all of humanity as well.' Carmody's entire face is red now; his eyes glare. He pushes his paper savagely back into his shiny briefcase, and says, 'Of course you all do have a conflict model. Everyone's interest conflicts with everyone else's. But better not conflict with Dr Kirk. Oh, no, it's not a consensus model for his classes all right. I mean, we're democratic, and we vote, but no dirty old conservative standpoints here. Sociology's revolutionary, and we'd better agree.'

'I'm going to have to cool this down,' says Howard, 'I don't think you're in a state to understand anything that's being said to you. We'll forget the paper, and start in on this Mill, Marx, Weber topic from the beginning.'

'Do what you like,' says Carmody, 'I've had enough.' He gets off his chair and kneels on the floor, picking up his pile of books. His hurt, angry face looks up at Howard as he does this. Then he stands, captures his briefcase with his fingers, and walks out of the circle, towards the door. The door is difficult to open, with his burden of books, but he manages it; he hooks a foot round it to bring it slamming to as he leaves. The circle of people stare after him; but to these 'habitués of the seminar as an event, this is a fairly modest outrage, a simple pettish hysteria, not at all as fancy as many of the intense psychodramas that develop in class. The door bangs, and they turn inward again, and resume their eye-to-eye ecological huddle. Howard leads them through a discussion of the issues that, in Carmody's gloss of nineteenth-century thought and society, had not existed: the compelling machine of industrialism, the fetish of commodity, the protestant ethic, the repression of the worker, the revolutionary energies. Carmody wanders somewhere else, forgotten; the class generates its rightful work and then its excitement, for Howard is a busy, compelling teacher, a man of passion. The faces wake, the hour turns in no time at all.

And then the stable clock chimes; the class gets up, and carries the tables back from the corridor into the room again. It is Howard's custom to take his class for coffee afterwards, and now he leads them, a little group, down in the lift, across the foyer, through the Piazza. They go into the coffee bar in the Students' Union, overlooking the lake. The noise level is high; in a corner a pin-table pings on different notes, in serial composition; people sit at table arguing, or reading. They find a booth by the wall, littered with cups and cigarette packets, and sit down, squeezing into the circular bench; Merion and Michael go off to join the queue at the counter to bring back coffee. 'Wow,' says Felicity, pushing in next to Howard, and resting her knee against his leg, and looking up into his face, 'I hope you never decide to destroy me like that.'

'Like what?' asks Howard. 'The way you did George,' says Felicity, 'If he wasn't such a reactionary, I'd feel sorry for him.'

'It mystifies me,' says Howard. 'It's as if he invites it, as if he's set himself up as masochist to my sadist.'

'But you don't give him a chance,' says Felicity. 'No chances for people like that,' says Hashmi, 'he's an imperialist fascist.'

'But you are a sadist,' says Felicity 'The trouble with George,' says Howard, 'is that he's the perfect teaching aid. The enemy personified. He almost seems to have chosen the role. I don't even know whether he's serious.'

'H(is,' says Felicity. The others join them, with the coffee. 'Coffee, coffee, what they here call coffee,' says Hashmi. 'Oh, Hashmi,' says Howard, 'Roger Fundy tells me Mangel's coming here to lecture. The man who did that work on race.'

'But you can's have him,' says Hashmi, 'I shall tell this to the Afro-Asian Society. This is worse than Carmody.'

'It is,' says Howard. He drinks his coffee, quickly, and gets up to go. As he leaves the table, squeezing over Felicity, she says, 'What time shall I come tonight, Howard?'

'Where?' asks Howard. 'I'm babysitting for you,' says Felicity. 'Oh,' says Howard, 'can you get there just before seven-fifteen?'

'Fine,' says Felicity, 'I'll come straight there. You won't even have to pick me up.'

'Good,' says Howard.

He goes back to the Social Science Building; getting out of the lift, at the fifth floor, he can distantly see a figure waiting outside the door of his study. From this standpoint, Carmody looks like a creature at the end of a long historical corridor, back in dark time; Howard stands, in the brightness of the emancipating present, at the other. Carmody has shed his books; he carries only his shiny briefcase; he has a dejected, saddened look. As Howard gets nearer, he glances up, and sees him; his demeanour stiffens. 'I think I ought to have a talk with you, sir,' he says to Howard, 'can you give me some time?'

'A minute or two,' says Howard, unlocking his door. 'Come in.' Carmody follows Howard through the doorway and then, just inside the room, he stops, his big body ungainly, holding his briefcase. 'Sit down, George,' says Howard, placing himself in the red desk chair, 'What's this about?'

'I want to discuss my work,' says Carmody, not moving from his position, 'I mean, a really frank discussion.'

'All right,' says Howard. 'I think I'm in trouble,' says Carmody, 'and I think you've got me into it.'

'What does that mean?' asks Howard. 'Well, this is my third year in your course,' says Carmody. 'I've written about twenty essays for you. They're here, in my bag. I wonder if you'd go over them with me.'

'We've been over them,' says Howard. 'I wonder if we could look at the marks,' says Carmody, 'it's a question of the marks.'

'What about them?' asks Howard. 'Well, sir, they're not very good marks,' says Carmody. 'No,' says Howard. 'They're mostly fails,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard. 'I mean, I could fail this course,' says Carmody. 'It rather looks as though you might,' says Howard. 'And that's all right with you?'

'It's the inevitable consequence of doing bad work.'

'And if I fail your course I fail my degree,' says Carmody, 'because if you don't pass in your subsidiary subject you can't get a degree.'

'That's right,' says Howard. 'You think that could happen?' asks Carmody. 'I do.'

'Well, in that case,' says Carmody, 'I have to ask you to look at these marks again, and see if you think they're fair.'

Howard examines Carmody's expression; it is civil, serious, rather nervous. 'Of course they're fair,' says Howard. 'Are you telling me I don't mark fairly?'

'Not exactly,' says Carmody, 'I don't think they're consistent.'

'Of course they are,' says Howard, 'Consistently bad. They're about the most consistent marks I've ever given.'

'Not consistent with my marks in other subjects,' says Carmody. 'My major's English; I get As and high Bs in that. I have to do Social History; I get mostly Bs there. And then there's Sociology, and that's all Ds and Fs.'

'Isn't the' obvious deduction that you're working seriously in English and History, and not in Sociology?'

'I admit I'm not attracted to Sociology,' says Carmody, 'especially the way it's taught here. But I do work. I work hard. You admit that in your comments on the essays. I mean, you say there's too much work and not enough analysis. But we know what that means, don't we?'

'Do we?' asks Howard. 'It means I don't see it your way,' says Carmody. 'Yes,' says Howard, 'you don't see it sociologically.'

'Not what you call sociologically,' says Carmody. 'You have a better sociology?' asks Howard, 'this Anglo- Catholic classicist-royalist stuff you import from English and want to call sociology?'

'It's an accepted form of cultural analysis,' says Carmody. 'I don't accept it,' says Howard. 'It's an arty-farty construct that isn't sociology, because it happens to exclude everything that makes up the real face of society. By which I mean poverty, racialism, inequality, sexism, imperialism, and repression, the things I expect you to consider and account for. But whatever I do, whatever topic I set you, I get this same old stuff rolled out.'

'In that case,' says Carmody, 'isn't it fairest to accept that we disagree? And perhaps move me to another sociology teacher, one who might accept that there is something in this approach?' There is sweat standing out on Carmody's brow. 'Ah, I see,' says Howard, 'you think you could get better marks from someone else. You can't con me, but you might swing it with someone else.'

'Look, Dr Kirk,' says Carmody, 'I can't ever satisfy you, I can't ever be radical enough to suit you. I have beliefs and convictions, like you. Why can't you give me a chance?'

'And what are these beliefs and convictions?' asks Howard. 'I happen to believe in individualism, not