The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara Page A

evidence of one’s intellectual purity and commitment to the life of the mind.
    But this was not how it always was. Then, it was difficult to ignore one’s colleagues’ extraoffice activities and interests because one was expected to be appropriate in one’s own. People spoke of the Turks approvingly not only because they had done well in school and were, so it was said, quick-minded and obedient and thoughtful, but because they were so presentable. Both had wives who had gone to Radcliffe, both came from well-known East Coast families, both were handsome enough and well dressed. They were very earnest. They were convinced that what they were doing was serious and important work—and so was I—but they were the sort of men for whom humor was to be practiced only at the appropriate events (parties, dinners, etc.) and then only within a very limited range. Except to Europe with their parents (and, I suppose, with the army in wartime, which hardly counts), neither of them had traveled, and neither of them longed to. Their friends were people like themselves, and they hired people like themselves—Ulliver and Nesser compensated for their strange Scandinavian surnames with their nicknames, which were Skip and Trip—and their lives were the lab to their homes in Cambridge or Newton and then back. People like Fat Irish may never have thought beyond a life of emptying mice cages and swabbing urine from the lab floors, but in their own way theTurks were as limited, as unimaginative: they assumed they would make a great contribution to mankind, and that is a faultless goal, I suppose, but the process itself never seemed as compelling to them as the outcome was, nor as the fantasy of having their name appended to whatever it is they dreamed of inventing or solving or fixing. I had gone into science for its adventure, but to them, adventure was something to be endured, not sought, on the road to inevitable greatness.
    II .
    It was not until I had been working at the lab for six months that I finally had my chance to meet Smythe. I had seen him before, of course, but only in glimpses: in newspapers, in magazines, as he ran into the lab to talk with Brassard and Fitch or to grab a piece of paper or a journal from his otherwise worrisomely tidy desk before leaving again for the world outside his lab. A few of my professors would occasionally ask me about him, jealous: What did he have me doing in that lab? What was he doing? I always told the truth, and this was boring and opaque enough to stop their questions: I cut open mice; I didn’t know. Had I known what I thought about him, had I admired him and wished to protect his work, I would have lied and made my own work sound more fascinating.
    One day, however, Brassard stopped by my counter as I was grating mice spleens. “Smythe left this for you,” he said, placing an envelope by my elbow. He was disapproving, but he was always disapproving. I took off my gloves and opened the envelope, a regular business-sized envelope with my name typed on the front. Inside was a letter on onionskin—also typed, so poorly I assumed Smythe had done so himself—inviting me to dinner that Friday, at 6:30 p.m. He had signed it with a black fountain pen and the ink had bled through the paper and blurred into a smudge. It’s difficult now to remember precisely what I thought of this invitation. I suppose I was flattered—although Brassard, who had somehow figured out what the letter was, made sure to inform me later that day that Smythe made a practice of inviting over each medical student who worked in his lab once (he emphasized the word) during his tenure—but oddly, I don’t recall being overly excited. Nor was I particularly worried. I had never quite understood how I had gotten the position in Smythe’s lab in the first place, and I knew for certain by then that itwas not a place I would stay; lack of interest has a kind way of eliminating all potential nervousness.
    On Friday I arrived