Characters of The Secret History

I thought (erroneously) that he dressed like Alfred Douglas, or the Comte de Montesquiou: beautiful starchy shirts with French cuffs; magnificent neckties; a black greatcoat that billowed behind him as he walked and made him look like a cross between a student prince and Jack the Ripper.

He wore dark English suits and carried an umbrella (a bizarre sight in Hampden) and he walked stiffly through the throngs of hippies and beatniks and preppies and punks with the self-conscious formality of an old ballerina, surprising in one so large as he.

It was a small, wise face, as alert and poised as a question; and though certain features of it were suggestive of youth - the elfin upsweep of the eyebrows, the deft lines of nose and jaw and mouth - it was by no means a young face, and the hair was snow white.

His voice was loud and honking, and carried in the dining halls.

In this swarm of cigarettes and dark sophistication they appeared here and there like figures from an allegory, or long-dead celebrants from some forgotten garden party.