“My parents are paid not to grow soybeans,” he said. “I have three older brothers. Magnificent physical specimens—kind-hearted, thick-necked, three-sport athletes who drink Schlitz and feel sorry for me. My dad doesn’t know what happened. He thinks he chewed too much dip before I was conceived, and that’s why I ‘di’n’t come out reg’lar.’ ” Eliot stubbed out his Merit in a glass ashtray balanced precariously on the glossy wooden hull and lit another one. “They think I’m at a special school for computer geeks and homosexuals.

“That’s why I don’t go home in the summertime. Henry doesn’t care. I haven’t been home since I started here.

“You probably feel sorry for me,” he went on airily. He wore a dressing gown over his regular clothes, which gave him a shabby princely look. “You shouldn’t, you know. I’m very happy here. Some people need their families to become who they’re supposed to be. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But there are other ways to do it.”

Quentin hadn’t realized how hard-won Eliot’s air of ludicrously exaggerated insouciance must be. That facade of lofty indifference must be there to hide real problems. Quentin liked to think of himself as a sort of regional champion of unhappiness, but he wondered if Eliot had him outclassed on that score, too.

As they drifted home they were passed by a few other boats, sailboats and cabin cruisers and a hard-charging eight-woman scull out of West Point, which was a few miles upriver. The occupants looked grim and bundled-up against the cold, in gray sweatshirts and sweatpants. They couldn’t perceive, or somehow weren’t part of, the August heat that Quentin and Eliot were enjoying. They were warm and dry and didn’t even know it. The terms of the enchantment locked them out.

MAGIC

“The study of magic is not a science, it is not an art, and it is not a religion. Magic is a craft. When we do magic, we do not wish and we do not pray. We rely upon our will and our knowledge and our skill to make a specific change to the world.

“This is not to say that we understand magic, in the sense that physicists understand why subatomic particles do whatever it is that they do. Or perhaps they don’t understand that yet, I can never remember. In any case, we do not and cannot understand what magic is, or where it comes from, any more than a carpenter understands why a tree grows. He doesn’t have to. He works with what he has.

“With the caveat that it is much more difficult and much more dangerous and much more interesting to be a magician than it is to be a carpenter.”

Delivering this edifying lecture was Professor March, whom Quentin had last seen during his Examination—he was the round, red-haired man with the hungry lizard. Because he was plump and red-faced he looked like he should be jolly and easygoing, but in actuality he was turning out to be kind of a hard-ass.