A Subtle Flame

Part 3

 CHAPTER TWO

 Cressida chose a seat in the middle, only a few rows from the back, losing herself between the groups of laughing, chattering undergraduates.  Although the auditorium was large – it could seat over two hundred students – it was already nearly full, with only a dozen or so seats spare.  Normally Cressida would sit in one of the front rows, far to the left, where she knew she would be outside the notice of the lecturer.  From there she would listen to Davis talking enthusiastically about Virgil, Cicero, Ovid and other Roman authors.  Only occasionally would she glance up to watch him pace behind the desk, gesticulating as he spoke, his whole body alive with his passion for the subject.

             But this time she had no need to hide.  Davis had invited her.  But it felt strange; too conspicuous.  Never before had she felt so patently older and plainer than the fashion-wise teenagers around her. 

             As Davis jogged down the wide steps to the desk at the front of the lecture hall, the crowd began to hush, save for the whispered giggles from a couple of girls behind Cressida.  Davis slung down his coat and bag behind the desk, not bothering to look for any notes.  He never used them, as far as Cressida knew.  Somehow he managed to keep it all in his head, and to deliver a structured, comprehensive lecture without a detailed plan in front of him.  He must revise his notes just before the lecture, Cressida reasoned to herself, mustn't he?

             Davis stood, facing his silent and expectant audience, with his hands casually tucked into his back pockets, and the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.  "Catullus.  Born 84 B.C. and died around 54 B.C.  Friend to Cicero but scornful of Caesar.  Hailed by critics as a 'new poet' but judged by himself as 'pessimus omnium poeta': the worst of all poets.  So tell me, what do you think?  Is he worth spending the next hour on, when we could be outside in the sunshine?"

             A responsive chuckle rippled through the auditorium, but the students were not yet roused enough to dare to raise their hands.

             "Come on, let's get the ball rolling.  I know you've read it, most of you at least.  I defy any of the teenagers amongst you to deny that when I promised you poems full of crude sexual explicitness, you went immediately to the library to secure your own copy.  And while we're on the subject, English translations of Latin quotations in essays on Catullus will not be required.  Let us spare poor Mrs Thorogood's sensibilities when she has to collect them in!"

             The room began to buzz with hushed whispers and giggles, and a few hands appeared above the sea of heads.  "Jason, share your thoughts with us," commanded Davis, indicating a lad a few rows in front of Cressida.  All Cressida could see of him was his long bleached hair which curled at his collar (probably hadn't been cut since he waved goodbye to mum and dad at the start of term, she mused) and baggy black jumper.

             "Catullus is, umm, noted for being, urr, a new poet because he rejected the long-windedness and pomposity of the old poetic tradition, and focused instead on, umm, a more colloquial and personal style," Jason suggested hesitantly.

             "Example?" replied Davis encouragingly.

             "His, umm, love for Lesbia."

             "Love and hate, Jason, love and hate."  His hands were released from his pockets and Davis began to gesture and pace in front of the white board.  Cressida couldn't help but grin as Davis moved into action, caught up in the rush of his thoughts and ideas.  "Catullus adored Lesbia, he was obsessed with her.  But he recognised her for what she was, a capricious flirt.  She was married, and Catullus was not the only man she had an adulterous relationship with.  But Catullus of course saw her other affairs as cheating on him, not her husband.  As Catullus himself says 'I hate and love.  Why I do so, perhaps you ask.  I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment.'"