North and South: The North and South Trilogy by John Jakes

surely your relatives speak the language?”
    “No, not anymore, I’m embarrassed to say. My mother can read a little, and my sisters are being tutored in French, but that’s all.”
    “God above,” cried the instructor, storming around the room. “How do they expect me to instruct barbarians? I might as well try to teach the M’sieu Attila to paint teacups.”
    The conversation only seemed to worsen Orry’s relationship with the instructor. One day in October, after Orry had given an especially halting recitation, d’Orémieulx blew up:
    “Let me tell you something, M’sieu Main. If the M’sieu Jesu Chri were to say to me, ‘M’sieu d’Orémieulx, will you listen to M’sieu Main speak French or will you go to the hell,’ I would say to him ‘I will go to the hell, s’il vous plaît, M’sieu Jesu Chri.’ Sit down. Sit down!”
    Next day, Orry started practicing his French aloud. He did this whenever he was alone in his room. Bent was always snooping around and two days later caught him during one of these recitations. The Ohioan roared into the room, demanding to know what was going on. When Orry explained, Bent scoffed.
    “You are entertaining someone in here, sir. Socializing.”
    Orry reddened. “Sir, I am not. Look for yourself, sir—”
    But the corporal had already waddled out. He placed Orry on report for attempting to deceive a superior.
    Orry wrote an excuse. After an awkward interview with Captain Thomas, he got the report removed. He learned later that Bent had raved and cursed for ten minutes when he heard the news.
    The autumn went faster than Orry had expected. Formations, drill, classroom work, and endless study left little time for anything else. The West Point system was founded on filling all a cadet’s waking moments. Only on Saturday afternoons were plebes free to do what they wished, and often that time had to be spent walking extra rounds of guard duty to work off demerits.
    In bad weather the duty was miserable. Superintendent Delafield, nicknamed Old Dickey, had some strange ways of economizing. One was his refusal to issue overcoats until after the January examinations. Why give a cadet an expensive coat he would carry off with him if he were dismissed? Consequently, in autumn’s rain and sleet, new cadets stood guard clad only in thin, incredibly filthy sentinel overcoats that had been in the guardroom, collecting dirt and vermin, for years.
    George still didn’t study much, but he was always in the first or second sections of mathematics and French. He already had 110 demerits; Orry had 93. Bent was responsible for two-thirds of both totals.
    Harassment by the Ohioan slacked off as the January examinations drew near. Orry took to sneaking down to Tom Jackson’s room after lights out. They studied together by the glow of banked coals in the fireplace.
    Orry regarded Jackson as inherently intelligent, perhaps even brilliant, yet the Virginian had a lot of trouble with lessons and formal classroom routine; each passing mark he obtained required a monumental struggle. Still, he was determined to succeed, and some of the other cadets recognized this extraordinary drive; Jackson had already acquired his cadet nickname, General.
    Sometimes, though, Orry thought Jackson was crazy—as when he would sit upright for five minutes at a time so that his internal organs could “hang and arrange themselves properly.” He was maniacal on the subject of his own health.
    George wrote an occasional letter home; Orry wrote a great many and received an equal number. But letters didn’t help as the end of December drew near. Never before had Orry been away from the family plantation at Christmas, and he got quite sentimental over the fact. Showing rare emotion, George admitted that he too would miss home a great deal. Finally, Christmas dawned, and although the chaplain preached an inspiring sermon in the chapel and the mess hall served a fine dinner, the day was a sad and lonely one for