40 Fun Facts About Paul's Case

In "Paul's Case", what does Paul wear in his buttonhole to face the faculty who want him punished?

A red carnation struck the faculty as anything but contrite, and Cather describes even Paul's parting bow as a repetition of that scandalous bloom.

Which evening job at Carnegie Hall lets Paul lose himself in the concerts in "Paul's Case"?

Usher was the one role in which Paul shone: gracious and smiling, he treated the hall like a great reception at which he was the host.

In which industrial city does Paul live with his father before running away in "Paul's Case"?

Pittsburgh was home to Cather herself for a decade, and she fills the story with its landmarks, from the concert hall to the grand hotel nearby.

To which city does Paul run for a week of luxury near the end of "Paul's Case"?

New York hotels filled pages of Paul's scrapbook, and the grand hotel he picks stood on the spot where the Empire State Building now rises.

Which grand hotel does Paul check into, taking a bedroom, sitting room and bath, in "Paul's Case"?

The Waldorf gives Paul its rooms without question, because he offers to pay in advance and claims his parents are due back from abroad.

Having decided against the gun he bought, how does Paul end his life in "Paul's Case"?

He jumps before a train in open country, and in his last instant regrets his haste, seeing the far-off places he will now never visit.

How does Paul get the money for his escape from his home city in "Paul's Case"?

He steals his firm's deposit on the way to the bank, pocketing nearly a thousand dollars in notes; his father later repays every cent.

At the start of "Paul's Case", why is Paul summoned to explain himself to his high school's faculty?

He has been suspended for a week over disorder and impertinence, though his instructors feel the real offence is the contempt he barely hides.

Where in his home city does Paul live, among identical houses he loathes, in "Paul's Case"?

Cordelia Street, to Paul, is where the waters close over his head: every house alike and every family bound for Sabbath school.

Willa Cather, author of "Paul's Case", became famous for novels about pioneers in which state?

Nebraska shaped O Pioneers! and My Ántonia, yet Cather set this early story far from the prairie, in the smoky city where she was then living.

In "Paul's Case", which drink at dinner makes Paul wonder that honest men exist at all?

Champagne, cold and foaming in his glass, convinces Paul that this is what all the world is fighting for.

At which famous jeweller does Paul choose silver and a scarf pin during his spree in "Paul's Case"?

Tiffany's, founded in 1837 and known for its sterling silver, gets a hurried customer: Paul will not wait to have his purchases engraved.

What colour is the horrible wallpaper in Paul's bedroom, which he dreads waking to in "Paul's Case"?

Yellow wallpaper haunts Paul so much that he sleeps with the hotel lights on, so that he can never wake and fear he is back home.

Hiding in the cellar all night in "Paul's Case", Paul dares not sleep for fear of what?

Rats keep him awake on a soapbox by the furnace door, where he passes the hours picturing how his father would react to finding him.

In "Paul's Case", Paul pictures his father in the cellar, pistol in hand, taking him for what?

A burglar is only the start: Paul goes on to wonder whether his father might one day wish that no warning cry had stayed his hand.

Whose portrait hangs beside George Washington's over Paul's bed in "Paul's Case"?

John Calvin, the Reformation theologian of Geneva, stands for the churchgoing household Paul is desperate to leave behind.

Who tries to guide Paul's hand at the blackboard in "Paul's Case", only to see him shudder away?

His English teacher never forgets the insult, leads the attack at the hearing, and later has to take her concert seat from Paul himself.

Which stranger from San Francisco takes Paul out for a night on the town in "Paul's Case"?

A Yale freshman shows Paul the night side of town until seven the next morning, yet the two part coolly in the hotel elevator.

Which scent does Paul hide in a drawer and use after helping with the dishes in "Paul's Case"?

Violet water masks the greasy dishwater and the ill-smelling soap he hates, a small secret luxury in a house that allows him none.

In "Paul's Case", where does the drawing master say Paul was born, shortly before his mother died?

Colorado is where his mother died of a long illness when he was only months old, a loss the drawing master links to Paul's haunted smile.

In "Paul's Case", what does Paul send a bellboy to fetch as the one thing his hotel room lacks?

Flowers complete the picture he has rehearsed a hundred times; he sets jonquils on a table by the couch and only then lies down to rest.

Before writing "Paul's Case", Willa Cather taught which ancient language to high school pupils?

Latin was the class in which Cather met a nervous boy who bragged of his actor friends, and she later said he supplied one half of Paul.

Which young actor in "Paul's Case" lets Paul loiter in his dressing room at the stock company?

Charley Edwards cannot afford a dresser, so Paul makes himself useful; once Paul is pulled out of school, the actor promises Paul's father not to see him again.

In "Paul's Case", Paul leaves his hearing whistling the Soldiers' Chorus from which French opera?

Faust, Charles Gounod's opera of 1859, gives Paul a jaunty tune to whistle while he looks back to see whether any of the faculty are watching.

Near the end of "Paul's Case", what does Paul do with a drooping blossom from his coat?

He buries it in the snow, reflecting that hothouse blooms get only one splendid breath before the winter outside the glass wins.

Which school subject does Paul pretend to need help with to cover a theatre visit in "Paul's Case"?

Geometry goes out of the door tucked conspicuously under his arm, along with a dime in carfare wrung from his reluctant father.

At a cast of which famous statue does Paul make an evil gesture on the stairs in "Paul's Case"?

Venus de Milo, the armless marble kept in the Louvre, gets the rude gesture; a cast of Augustus has to settle for a pulled face.

Which subtitle did Willa Cather give "Paul's Case" when the story first appeared in a magazine?

A Study in Temperament suits the clinical title: school and father alike treat Paul as a case to be handled rather than a boy to be understood.

Which collection, Willa Cather's first book of stories, ends with "Paul's Case" as its seventh tale?

The Troll Garden came out in 1905, and Cather later reworked four of its tales, this one included, for a second collection in 1920.

Which First World War novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Willa Cather, author of "Paul's Case"?

One of Ours took the 1923 prize with the tale of a farmer's son who goes to war, though Ernest Hemingway mocked its battle scenes as borrowed from film.

For many years, "Paul's Case" was the only story Willa Cather would allow editors to do what with?

Put in anthologies was a rare concession: Cather and her publisher refused almost every other request to reprint her work in readers and omnibus volumes.

Which muckraking monthly printed "Paul's Case" in 1905 and soon hired Willa Cather as an editor?

McClure's ran the story in May 1905, and the next year Cather left the classroom for good to join the magazine's editorial staff.

Which hotel does Paul watch from the rain after following a soprano's carriage in "Paul's Case"?

The Schenley was a real hotel, built in 1898, and the building survives today as a university's student union.

Paul's abnormally large pupils in "Paul's Case" make him look addicted to which drug?

Belladonna, or deadly nightshade, widens the pupils, but Cather adds that Paul's eyes had a glassy glitter the drug does not produce.

Which motto, stitched in worsted by Paul's late mother, hangs framed over his bed in "Paul's Case"?

Feed my Lambs is the first of three charges the risen Jesus gives Peter in John's Gospel, a fitting text for a house where Sabbath school is never missed.

In his final moment in "Paul's Case", Paul pictures Adriatic water and the sands of which country?

Algeria and the Adriatic stand for all he has left undone; earlier he had bragged to classmates of trips to Naples, Venice and Egypt.

Which American composer turned "Paul's Case" into a two-act chamber opera that premiered in 2013?

Gregory Spears wrote the libretto with Kathryn Walat, and after its premiere the piece travelled to the PROTOTYPE opera festival.

Outside which New Jersey city does Paul dismiss his cab on the last morning of "Paul's Case"?

Newark is where he hires a driver to take him out into open country, his mind sorting every face he has seen that morning.

Which Strauss waltz does the hotel orchestra play at Paul's first dinner in "Paul's Case"?

The Blue Danube, written by Johann Strauss II in 1866, floods his dinner with what Cather calls a bewildering radiance.

Which actor, fresh from King of the Gypsies, played Paul in the 1980 TV film of "Paul's Case"?

Eric Roberts starred in the 54-minute film, directed by Lamont Johnson for the PBS anthology The American Short Story.