What one reviewer at amazon said about The Pupil:
This longish short story tells the tale of a young teacher hired by a "...housefull of bohemians that wanted tremendously to be Philistines." He's quite taken with his pupil, a young man who returns the affection of his teacher and sees through his parent's social climbing ways.
It is the usual world of Henry James, monied turn of the centry Europe, although in this instance the Ameicans abroad are not-so-innocent and not-so-monied. And while there is a reasonable amount of action in the story, no one is going to confuse it with Dashiell Hammett. Perhaps Proust on one of his less verbose days.
The strength of the story is nuance. The negotiations between the mother and the teacher are especially strong and a classic Jamesian quote is contained in the only point of view change from the teacher's that I recall in the story: "If Mr. Moreen hadn't have been such a man of the world he would have perhaps have spoken of the freedom of such neckties on the part of a subordinate."
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