The dancing was different, the party lingers on

In 1924, a former Dartmouth English instructor named Percy Marks caused a few ripples in the literary world with the publication of his first novel, The Plastic Age. Reviewers praised the book as an accurate reflection of college life, and in 1927 it was made into a movie of the same title, starring Clara Bow. The Plastic Age, from which the following excerpts were taken, was set in a small New England college modeled after Dartmouth, and with malice aforethought Marks described activities by no means unknown to today's fraternities.

Just after Easter vacation the Nu Deltas gave their annual house dance. Hugh looked forward to it with considerable pleasure. True, he was not "dragging a woman," but several of the brothers were going "stag"; so he felt completely at ease.

The dance was just starting when he arrived. The patronesses were in the library, a small room off the living-room. Hugh learned later that six men had been delegated to keep the patronesses in the library and adequately entertained. The men worked in shifts, and although the dance lasted until three the next morning, not a patroness got a chance to wander unchaperoned around the house.

Hugh permitted himself to be presented to the patronesses, mumbled a few polity words, and then joined the stag line, waiting for a chance to cut in. Presently a couple moved slowly by, so slowly that they did not seem to move at all. The girl was Hester Sheville. and Hugh had been introduced to her in the afternoon. Despite rather uneven features and red hair, she was almost pretty: and in her green evening gown, which was cut daringly low, she was flashing and attractive.

Hugh stepped forward and tapped her partner on the shoulder. The brother released her with a grimace at Hugh, and Hester, without a word, put her right hand in Hugh's left and slipped her left arm around his neck. They danced in silence for a time, bodies pressed close together, swaying in place, hardly advancing. Presently, however, Hester drew her head back and spoke.

"Hot stuff, isn't it?" she asked lazily.

Hugh was startled. Her breath was redolent of whisky.

"Sure; is," he replied and executed a difficult step, the girl following him without the slightest difficulty. She danced remarkably, but he was glad when he was tapped on the shoulder and another brother claimed Hester. The whisky breath had repelled him.

As the evening wore on he danced with a good many girls who had whisky breaths. One girl clung to him as they danced and whispered, "Hold me up, kid; I'm ginned." He had to rush a third, a dainty blond child, to the porch railing. She wasn't a pretty sight as she vomited into the garden; nor did Hugh find her gasped comment, "The seas are rough to-night," amusing. Another girl went sound asleep in a chair and had to be carried up-stairs and put to bed.

A number of the brothers were hilarious; a few had drunk too much and were sick: one had a "crying jag." There were men there, however, who were not drinking at all, and they were making gallant efforts to keep the sober girls away from the less sober girls and the inebriated brothers.

Hugh was not drinking. The idea of drinking at a dance was offensive to him; he thought it insulting to the girls. The fact that some of the girls were drinking horrified him. He didn't mind their smoking — well, not very much;,but drinking? That was going altogether too far.

About midnight he danced again with Hester Sheville, not because he wanted to but because she had insisted. He had been standing gloomily in the doorway watching the bacchanalian scene, listening to the tom-tom of the drums when she came up to him.

"I wanta dance," she said huskily. "I wanta dance with you — you — you blond beast." Seeing no way to decline to dance with the half-drunk girl, he put his arm around her and started off. Hester's tongue was no longer in control, but her feet followed his unerringly. When the music stopped, she whispered, "Take me — ta-take me to th' th' dining-room." Wonderingly, Hugh led her across the hall. He had not been in the dining-room since the dance started, and he was amazed and shocked to find half a dozen couples in the big chairs or on the divans in close embrace. He paused, but Hester led him to an empty chair, shoved him clumsily down into it, and then flopped down on his lap.

"Le's — le's pet," she whispered. "I wanna pet."

Again Hugh smelled the whisky fumes as she put her hot mouth to his and kissed him hungrily. He was angry, angry and humiliated. He tried to get up, to force the girl off of his lap, but she clung tenaciously to him, striving insistently to kiss him on the mouth. Finally Hugh's anger got the better of his manners; he stood up, the girl hanging to his neck, literally tore.her arms off of him, took her by the waist and set her down firmly in the chair.

"Sit there," he said softly, viciously; "sit there."

She began to cry, and he walked rapidly out of the dining-room, his cheeks flaming and his eyes flashing; and the embracing couples paid no attention to him at all. He had to pass the door of the library to get his top-coat — he made up his mind to get out of the "goddamned house" — and was walking quickly by the door when one of the patronesses called to him.

"Oh, Mr. Carver. Will you come here a minute?"

"Surely, Mrs. Reynolds." He entered the library and waited before the dowager.

"I left my wrap up-stairs — in Mr. Merrill's room, I think it is. I am getting a little chilly. Won't you get it for me?"

Hugh ran up the stairs, opened Merrill's door, switched on the lights, and immediately spotted the wrap lying over the back of a chair. He picked it up and was about to leave the room when a noise behind him attracted his attention. He turned and saw a man and a girl lying on the bed watching him.

Hugh stared blankly at them, his mouth half open.

"Gel th' hell out of here," the man said roughly.

For an instant Hugh continued to stare; then he whirled about, walked out of the room, slammed the door behind him, and hurried down the stairs. He delivered the wrap to Mrs. Reynolds, and two minutes later he was out of the house walking, almost running, across the campus to Surrey Hall. Once there, he tore off his top-coat, his jacket, his collar and tie, and threw himself down into a chair.

So this was college! This was the fraternity — that goddamned rat house! That was what he had pledged allegiance to, was it? Those were his brothers, were they? Brothers! Brothers!

He fairly leaped out of his chair and began to pace the floor. College! Gentlemen! A lot of muckers chasing around with a bunch of rats; that's what they were. Great thing — fraternities. No doubt about it, they were a great institution.

from The Plastic Age. © 1957 Percy Marks, By permission of Hawthorne Books.