Madame de Silentio runs a boarding school for teenage boys, teaching them how to be good husbands. The narrator reflects that he was upset to be sent to Madame de Silentio’s, but he now realizes that the education was valuable. Madame de Silentio condenses the boys’ academics, focusing on important topics like handshakes, mowing, and avoiding impotence. She teaches them to consider what would make “her” (their future wives) happy. The boys are legally obligated to stay in school until they are 18.

The narrator recently became “Head Prefect” and must write a chapter for the handbook. He decides to write about a cautionary tale that happened at the Academy. There were two boys, Charles Wolfe and Charlie Wulf, who became friends despite their differences. Charlie was a “pretty boy” who experienced a drug addiction before his enrollment. He began using addictive substances when he was seven. His parents sent him to Madame de Silentio’s as a last resort. Charles was “unattractive” and the son of an Indian government official. He liked to steal blue items, and he wrote strange, sometimes violent things in his English diary. He was closely watched and suspected of misbehavior that the school couldn’t prove.