The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Part 1, Section 4 Summary

  • Benjamin’s reverse aging continues.
  • By the time he is eighteen he looks fifty. His hair is no longer white and his stoop is gone, so his father sends him up to Yale to take the entrance examinations. He passes and becomes a member of the freshman class.
  • A few days before school starts, Benjamin is called into the registrar’s office to arrange his schedule.
  • When Benjamin arrives, the registrar is not pleased with this apparent prank.
  • Benjamin tries to explain that he really is eighteen years old, but the registrar calls him a lunatic and kicks him out of the school.
  • As Benjamin is leaving, word quickly spreads on campus that some old lunatic tried to enter the freshman class. The boys chase after Benjamin and mock him.
  • As his train speeds away, Benjamin yells that the school will regret this someday.
  • The narrator adds: "it was the biggest mistake Yale College had ever made" (1.4.28).