Free Pamela Dean by Tam Lin (pdf) Page B

she said.
    "Shhh," said Nick. "Schiller."
    "You've got him?"
    "Shush. Rob Benfield has him right now, and I'm going to get him. You want to watch?"
    "Yes," said Janet. Two Chemistry majors in the class of 1910 had stolen a bust of Schiller from the library and insinuated it into their graduation ceremony. A Classics major and an English major had stolen it from them, kept it all summer, and brought it to Convocation the following autumn. From that time on, there were always students for whom the possession of the bust, and its showing at college events, concerned them more than their studies. Janet had never known anybody who had Schiller, and had seen him only once, at a concert of Renaissance music. She schooled her face: Christina was looking at them.
    "All right. He's got him in Chester Hall, in one of the practice rooms. I'm going to meet him tomorrow afternoon to practice a duet."
    "Where does the foil come in?"
    "To keep him at bay."
    "You're going to back down four flights of steps with a plaster bust under your arm and a foil in the other hand?"

    "Benfield doesn't fence," said Nick, filling his glass.

    Janet got some chocolate milk too, to add verisimilitude to an otherwise compromising position. "Well, neither do you."
    There was a brief pause. "Well," said Nick, "Benfield doesn't know that."
    "What time?" said Janet, following him to the table the others had taken.
    "Five or so."
    "Five or so what?" said Christina.
    "Classes per term, to do a double major," Nick improvised and sat down next to her.
    "Don't be an idiot," said Robin.
    "Full of sound and fury," said Nick, reflectively. "Anybody taking Shakespeare this term?"
    "Molly and I are taking it in the winter," said Janet, sitting down between Molly and Christina.
    "Robin flunked it last year," said Nick.
    Robin, looking unperturbed, lobbed a roll at him. "Too modern," he said.
    "Shakespeare?" said Christina.
    "The professor," said Nick.
    "Who'd you take it from?" Janet asked Robin.
    "Tyler."
    "Well, then. I'm surprised they let him teach it."
    "He's read it a million times," said Robin, fielding the returning roll, tearing it open, and buttering it lavishly. "If you hate Shakespeare, he's a fine one to take it from. Just like Tolstoy."
    "Tolstoy taught Shakespeare?" said Christina.
    Janet looked quickly at her. She might have been making a joke. Nick was looking at her, too, with his ingenuous eyes wide open. Put him and Molly together, thought Janet, and you could persuade anybody of anything.
    It was Robin, however, who answered Christina. "No; hated him," he said. "He thought he was vulgar. No dignity in his language, he said. Russians, fie."
    "Dostoyevski's vulgar," said Christina. It took Janet a moment to realize what Christina's remark implied. The girl who thought Madeleine L'Engle silly had read Dostoyevski.
    "Do you like him?" said Robin.
    "Well," said Christina, "no. I liked Freud's essays about him, so I read the books; but they weren't nearly as interesting. But he was vulgar, at least I thought so—so some Russians are vulgar, even if Tolstoy didn't like it."
    Robin looked at her thoughtfully, and then concentrated on his meal. Nobody else said anything for some time. Janet had framed and discarded several remarks when an enormous crack of thunder smacked the air outside.
    "Oh, good," said Robin. "If everybody's finished, let's go out onto the porch. The wind's in the east; we won't get much wet."
    "Fine," said Christina, dropping her fork with a splat into her uneaten veal. "This stuff's like leather."
    "I'll buy you a hamburger later," said Robin.

    They disposed of their trays and left the dining hall.
    "That's right," said Nick as they climbed the stairs. "Robin and Rob and I are going to catch the ten o'clock movie. Would you ladies like to come with us?"
    "Sure," said Christina.
    "What's the movie?" said Molly.
    "Olivier's Othello ," said Nick; he was looking at Robin with an expression Janet could not decipher.
    "I have class early