The Curious Case … , at Yale

Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-first year I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years of normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of fifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm, his voice had lost its cracked tremble and descended to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and became a member of the freshman class.

On the third day following his matriculation he received a notification from Mr. Hart, the college registrar, to call at his office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror, decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, but an anxious inspection of his bureau drawer disclosed that the dye bottle was not there. Then he remembered—he had emptied it the day before and thrown it away.

He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrar's in five minutes. There seemed to be no help for it—he must go as he was. He did.

View of New London, Connecticut, 1854. Wikipedia

"Good-morning," said the registrar politely. "You've come to inquire about your son."

"Why, as a matter of fact, my name's Button——" began Benjamin, but Mr. Hart cut him off.

"I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I'm expecting your son here any minute."

"That's me!" burst out Benjamin. "I'm a freshman."

"What!"

"I'm a freshman."

"Surely you're joking."

"Not at all."

The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before him. "Why, I have Mr. Benjamin Button's age down here as eighteen."

"That's my age," said Benjamin, flushing slightly.

The registrar eyed him despairingly. "Now surely, Mr. Button, you don't expect me to believe that."

Benjamin smiled tiredly. "I am eighteen," he repeated.

The registrar pointed sternly to the door. "Get out," he said. "Get out of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous lunatic."

"I am eighteen."

Mr. Hart opened the door. "The idea!" he shouted. "A man of your age trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well, I'll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town."

Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozen undergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiously with their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, faced the infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the door-way, and repeated in a firm voice: "I am eighteen years old."

To a chorus of laughers which went up from the group of undergraduates, Benjamin walked away.

But he was not fated to escape so easily. On his melancholy walk to the railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group, then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entrance examinations for Yale and attempted to pass himself as a youth of eighteen. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatless out of classes, the football team abandoned its practice and joined the mob, professors' wives with misplaced bonnets and dresses out of position, ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded a continual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of Benjamin Button.

"He must be the wandering Jew!"

"He ought to go to prep school at his age!"

"Look at the infant prodigy!"

"He thought this was the old men's home."

"Go up to Harvard!"

Benjamin increased his step, and soon he was running. He would show them! He would go to Harvard, and then they would regret these ill-considered mocking!

Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put his head from the window. "You'll regret this!" he shouted.

"Ha-ha!" the undergraduates laughed. "Ha-ha-ha!" It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had ever made…. (inglés más fácil)

Vocabulario

Connecticut: estado ubicado en la región de New England en el noreste de Estados Unidos. Limita con Rhode Island al este, Massachusetts al norte, y New York al oeste y al sur. Nombrado así por el río Connecticut, un gran río que cruza el estado. La palabra proviene de la corrupción francesa del Algonquin quinetucket, “río largo con mareas”. Su capital es Hartford.

Universidad de Harvard: es una universidad privada ubicada en Cambridge, Massachusetts. Su historia, calidad educativa, influencia académica y riqueza la convirtieron en una de las universidades más prestigiosas del mundo.

Fue fundada en 1636 por la legislatura de Massachusetts. Fue nombrada así en honor a su primer benefactor John Harvard. Aunque nunca estuvo formalmente afiliada a alguna iglesia sirvió fundamentalmente para preparar a los religiosos. A lo largo del siglo 18 la curricula y los estudiantes se hicieron seculares y se convirtió en un centro cultural en la elite de Boston.

¿Qué más?

Benjamin, a sus 20 años, empieza a ayudar a su padre en el negocio, y se enamora de la señorita Hildegarde Moncrief

El extraño caso de Benjamin vuelve a ponerse de moda, todos los diarios de la época hablan de la situación, y lo muestran como una especie de monstruo

A pesar de la oposición de su familia la señorita Hildegarde se empeña en seguir su romance con Benjamin

Benjamin comienza a rejuvenecer y siente la vitalidad del joven

La fortuna de la familia se incrementa gracias a la habilidad del joven Benjamin para los negocios

Relacionado con Benjamin Button luego:

El curioso caso de BB, el resumen

Benjamin Button, datos

Personajes en Benjamín Button

  

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