Our Latin class was somewhere inside. It was first period, and Eleanor was running late and had stopped by the dining hall to pick up breakfast before class, so I was left to find it by myself. A few minutes before the bell rang, I was still standing in the foyer, staring down at my schedule as students rushed past me.
Elementary Latin M W F 8:00 am
EW, II, VII, Horace Hall
I was pretty sure that meant east wing, second floor, seventh room. Or maybe it meant east wing, second room, seventh floor. Or maybe EW were the initials of my professor. I tried to ask for help, but everyone pushed past me in a rush to get to class, a swirling haze of pressed shirts, cuff links, ties, and penny loafers. This place couldn’t be that hard to navigate; I just had to think. I had a gut feeling that it was on the seventh floor, so in a somewhat arbitrary decision, I made my way up the stairs to the east wing.
I found the room just as the bell rang. Breathless, I pushed open the door and flung myself inside, a flustered, sweaty mess. The entire class turned in my direction, and I knew I’d made a mistake. It was a small group; everyone was sitting around a single wooden table, hunched over their books when I interrupted. They all looked older and somewhat unwelcoming, particularly a brooding boy with short auburn hair that was neatly combed and parted down the side. He was wearing a black suit, far fancier than anyone else in the class, and tortoiseshell glasses. Next to him was a girl who could have been his sister. I couldn’t decide who was more handsome. She was also wearing a man’s suit, though hers was tailored to her slender frame. Her short black hair was parted and slicked back, as if she were a wealthy financier from the 1920s.
The professor was a robust young man with sandy hair that reminded me of a golden retriever. He was lecturing in a language I didn’t understand. It was probably Latin, though I was sure this wasn’t the class I was supposed to be in. The professor stopped speaking and gave me a questioning look. I could feel my face turn red.
“Is this Elementary Latin?” I asked stupidly.
The person in the seat closest to me turned around, and to my surprise, it was Dante. He raised an eyebrow, a beautiful eyebrow, and stared at me with amusement. Seeing him again, I felt embarrassed and excited all at once. He was leaning over the back of his seat, his collared shirt pulled tightly around his broad shoulders. His wavy brown hair was pulled back with an elastic band, a few stray locks dangling just below his chin. I imagined myself running my fingers through it.
We made eye contact, and I felt myself blushing.
“No,” the professor said, taking off his glasses. Behind him, the board was covered in notes written in Latin. The only words I recognized were Descartes and Romulus et Remus. A simple six-sided figure was drawn over and over again in different iterations and dimensions. Confused, I looked at it again. It couldn’t be anything other than the image that had been haunting me for the last two weeks: a coffin.
“I … I’m sorry,” I murmured, and began to back out the door, when Dante stood up and walked toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. I fumbled with my things, and he reached behind me, his hand grazing my skirt as he opened the door. And giving me a barely discernible smile, he breathed, “Second floor. Seventh room on the left.”
I was late for Latin. When I walked into the classroom, it was the same thing all over again, all heads in my direction, and silence—a dead, pitying silence. Eleanor’s eyes were wide and terrified for me. “What happened?” she mouthed, curling a ringlet of hair around her finger nervously. But I didn’t dare respond. The professor stopped lecturing.
“I... I’m sorry I’m late. I got lost.”
“I don’t want you to speak; I want you to sit,” she said, as if I should have known.
Trying to keep a low profile, I hugged my bag and made my way to the back of the room.
Our Latin professor was a fortress of a woman, wearing a wide, shapeless dress and a thick pair of glasses. Professor Edith Lumbar was written on the board in wobbly cursive.
Edith Lumbar. She was the woman my grandfather had told me to contact if I ever needed help. I closed my eyes and sighed, wishing I hadn’t already gotten on her bad side.
“To continue where we left off, while you are in my classroom, there will be a number of rules. First, there shall be no slouching.”
The sound of shuffling filled the room as people sat up straight.
“Practitioners of Latin must pay close attention to precision in all facets of life if they wish to master the subtle science of the language.”
She began pacing about the room. “Second, you are not to speak unless you are called upon.
“And third, and this is by far the most important of all the rules, you are never, under any circumstance, to speak the language of Latin.”
How could we learn a language that we were never allowed to speak? And what was the point of learning it in the first place?
“Why?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Professor Lumbar turned around and looked at me with surprise. “Were you not listening when I mentioned rule number two?” she asked, though it clearly wasn’t a question. “What is your name?”
“Renée Winters,” I said.
She gazed at me for a moment and then repeated, “Renée. To be born again. An old name, derivative of the Latinate and French verb naître, to be born, and shared by the great thinker René Descartes. While you clearly possess his proclivity for argumentation, it’s evident from your rash behavior that you lack his patience and wisdom to follow a logical progression through to its end.”
I barely had time to process her diatribe before she continued.
“So, Renée, what is it that don’t you understand?” Her tone was polite yet rife with sarcasm. The room was so silent I could hear my stomach growling.
I swallowed. “I was just … I was wondering why we can’t speak a language that we’re trying to learn.”
“That’s an interesting question. Does anyone want to answer her?”
A boy in the front row raised his hand.
“Yes,” Professor Lumbar said. “What is your name?”
“Prem,” he said.
“Prem, what do you think?”
“Is it because Latin is a dead language?”
“Latin has been considered ‘dead’ for centuries. Yet it is quite alive. Historically, Latin has been a language of the elite. Only select people were able to read it, write it, and most important, speak it. In this class we will study the legends surrounding the people Latin chose to speak through. Since this is an elementary class, it is obvious that no one in this room has been blessed with a Latinate tongue. To attempt to speak it out loud would thus be an act of hubris.