The Accursed. Joyce Carol Oates

teach its former class enemies the virtues of self-restraint, charity, communal sharing, and contempt for greed.

      In the bustling tavern, Upton ordered cheese, dark bread, and a glass of milk from the bemused waitress and sat lost in such thoughts, that had the effect of consoling him. Then, as the young male voices on all sides were so loud, gay, and fired with the myriad enthusiasms of youth, he couldn’t help eavesdropping; hearing excited news of a recent crewing victory over Brown; crude and jocose commentary on President Wilson and his “family of females”; and rumors that a “coal-black nigger” had been detained, as the possible murderer of the young Spags girl; except that a prior detainee, an immigrant from eastern Europe, had signed a confession to Trenton police, this newer detainee was believed to be the actual murderer, and not the other. (Discussing the Spags murder, of which Upton had heard only rumors, the young Princeton undergraduates were indignant and incensed; several of them infuriated that a “coal-black nigger” should defile a white girl, and yet voices were raised in his defense . . .)