Astar

Chapter 4. The Republic is dead | Actum est de republica

Aliquid inter te intersit et librum. Quousque disces? iam et praecipe. ...ego vero utar via vetere, sed si propiorem planioremque invenero, hanc muniam. Qui ante nos ista moverunt non domini nostri sed duces sunt. Patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata.

Let there be a difference between yourself and your book! How long shall you be a learner? From now on be a teacher as well! ...I shall indeed use the old road, but if I find one that makes a shorter cut and is smoother to travel, I shall open the new road. Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides. Truth lies open for all; it has not yet been monopolized.

— Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XXXIII

I walk around the empty auditorium rehearsing the speech over and over and over again. You can wake me up in the middle of the night and I'll recite the text to any of the slides. I'd like this to be one of those presentations, when I 'did it and forgot' but this will only be the first step. I can't even imagine the reaction of my groupmates. Maybe they won't care. To be honest, I wouldn't be so surprised, but the professor's reaction may be worse than I expected. However, I'm not giving up on my plan and going all the way. He's not yet the deputy director of the archive, he won't become one in the next hour, when my speech begins, but something tells me that his favorite visuals may influence his final decision.

The hour flies by unnoticed and the audience today seems much more lively than usual. If I remember correctly, not many seats were taken during the regular lectures. Unless the truants came on such a special day to honor us with attending. Almost all the seats are occupied which means there are about one hundred and twenty people here.

God, give me strength.

Professor Anderson approaches the lectern, I stand next to him, and we give the audience one minute to calm down. Ellie and the entire group 103 took the second and third rows. Blake is sitting with Nate in the back rows. I asked them to sit there myself knowing their chatty mouths and how distracting it can be. Running my eyes over the students, I notice several unfamiliar faces and a dark spot on the very edge of the last row. My blood starts boiling with anger. Zeke is boring into me with such a stern look as no teacher has ever looked at me before. Blake catches that something is wrong, looks behind her, turns around with a face as if she saw a lion, and whispers something to Nate. I look at Zeke again and mentally ask why he's even here; and I swear, I can feel him answering without breaking his gaze.

Hugh taps his fingers on the edge of the lectern and clears his throat.

We begin.

"Welcome to the first presentation of the archive! It's very nice to see so many faces. Today, guys, we have a full house! This is very useful. This year's projects will be especially exciting and intriguing. I remind you that work is being carried out on the recently declassified archives of the Great Serenor War. As you can guess, the most interesting things are always kept a secret. Therefore, I am sure Florence won't leave you indifferent." He walks away from the lectern and invites me to take his place. He pulls the students over and sits next to them in the front row.

"Good morning to everyone." Nerves pull a smile on my face, although knowing what's on the slides, I don't feel like smiling at all. "As Professor Anderson pointed out, this study was really exciting. In general, the analysis of one document, that is, one fait accompli, took sixteen hours of continuous work inside the archive and dozens of hours for weeks outside it. I'd like to immediately note the significant contribution that the professor has made to this project. Without his access to the archive and knowledge of additional sources, all this would not have happened. Let's say thank you to him!" The whole audience supports him with applause and he nods gratefully to everyone with such pride on his face, as if he has just won an Oscar.