right, watch where you're going."
"Could you move out of my way, please? You're standing right where—oh. You've got the book I want."
"What could you possibly want with this?"
"I'm a student," said Janet, sweetly. "Do you want to see my ID card?"
"Go find one of the nice translations, there's a good girl."
You keep a civil tongue in your head, there's a good boy, thought Janet. She took a deep breath. "Are you going to check it out?"
"Of course not."
Lovely voice, dreadful temperament. Any rational person would walk away from him and go reserve one of the nice translations for later this afternoon. But why should he get away with being so rude? Because he had gorgeous gray eyes and yellow hair and a thin, thoughtful face? Nonsense.
"How long will you be using it, then?"
He rolled the gorgeous gray eyes at the ceiling and said through his white, white teeth,
"What fucking difference does it make to you? I've got it; go away."
"Is this a nasty translation?"
"What?"
"As opposed to the nice ones?"
The young man made a noise in his throat that was just short of a growl. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen," said Janet, startled into the simple truth.
"If you want to live to be nineteen," said her antagonist, "go away."
Janet burst out laughing; this was really too much; neither of them was acting a day over twelve. From a little distance away, where the carrels were ranged under the windows, a harried voice hissed, "Shut up!" Janet could not stop laughing, and did not, in fact, greatly want to. She leaned on the cold metal shelf and chortled until the young man, who had turned very red, held the book out at arm's length, opened his long brown hands, and strode around the end of the stack before the book hit the floor. It did so with a resounding flat smack, like a car backfiring. The harried voice, now much louder and clearly female, burst into furious expostulation. The young man's voice, answering it in standard college terminology, echoed like that of somebody playing a madman in the theater.
Janet snatched up the book and ran for the stairs. When she returned the book to its place at four o'clock, there was nobody on the lowest level of the library at all. Janet had a headache, partly from the poem, which she devoutly hoped Evans was going to explain to them, or she was doomed from the start, and partly from the fact that she had had no lunch.
Nick's abduction by sword of the bust of Schiller was scheduled for five. Janet crept up the broad, well-lit stairways of the library as if she expected people to materialize out of the cinder-block walls at her, scooted through the deserted lobby, and emerged blinking into a much stronger sunlight than the earlier part of the day had suggested. She lingered on the sidewalk that led to the library, checking for the presence of tall, beautiful young men with foul tempers.
She wished she had not forced the encounter with the mad Theater major. He had been rude, and had deserved some rudeness in return; but she was not pleased with her own part in the conversation, which felt in retrospect more like flirtation than reprimand. What had been the matter with him, though? It was much too early for people to be burning out on their studies and turning obstreperous. Of course, if he'd been standing there for some time, trying to read that damn poem, then almost any wild behavior could probably be excused.
As she crossed the campus, the figures of the poem were still in her mind—the precise walled garden; the red roses; the one half-open flower that the poet had, God knew why, set his heart on; the flat, formal characters with their peculiar names: Jalosie, Amis, Biautez, Reason, Bialacoil, Franchise, Pite. All harping on the rose, one rosebud in a garden full of the flowers. Janet's mind's ear presented to her her mother's voice, in the Scottish accent she remembered from Janet's great-grandmother, reading Burns on a winter's evening when the power was out.
"My luve is like a
"Could you move out of my way, please? You're standing right where—oh. You've got the book I want."
"What could you possibly want with this?"
"I'm a student," said Janet, sweetly. "Do you want to see my ID card?"
"Go find one of the nice translations, there's a good girl."
You keep a civil tongue in your head, there's a good boy, thought Janet. She took a deep breath. "Are you going to check it out?"
"Of course not."
Lovely voice, dreadful temperament. Any rational person would walk away from him and go reserve one of the nice translations for later this afternoon. But why should he get away with being so rude? Because he had gorgeous gray eyes and yellow hair and a thin, thoughtful face? Nonsense.
"How long will you be using it, then?"
He rolled the gorgeous gray eyes at the ceiling and said through his white, white teeth,
"What fucking difference does it make to you? I've got it; go away."
"Is this a nasty translation?"
"What?"
"As opposed to the nice ones?"
The young man made a noise in his throat that was just short of a growl. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen," said Janet, startled into the simple truth.
"If you want to live to be nineteen," said her antagonist, "go away."
Janet burst out laughing; this was really too much; neither of them was acting a day over twelve. From a little distance away, where the carrels were ranged under the windows, a harried voice hissed, "Shut up!" Janet could not stop laughing, and did not, in fact, greatly want to. She leaned on the cold metal shelf and chortled until the young man, who had turned very red, held the book out at arm's length, opened his long brown hands, and strode around the end of the stack before the book hit the floor. It did so with a resounding flat smack, like a car backfiring. The harried voice, now much louder and clearly female, burst into furious expostulation. The young man's voice, answering it in standard college terminology, echoed like that of somebody playing a madman in the theater.
Janet snatched up the book and ran for the stairs. When she returned the book to its place at four o'clock, there was nobody on the lowest level of the library at all. Janet had a headache, partly from the poem, which she devoutly hoped Evans was going to explain to them, or she was doomed from the start, and partly from the fact that she had had no lunch.
Nick's abduction by sword of the bust of Schiller was scheduled for five. Janet crept up the broad, well-lit stairways of the library as if she expected people to materialize out of the cinder-block walls at her, scooted through the deserted lobby, and emerged blinking into a much stronger sunlight than the earlier part of the day had suggested. She lingered on the sidewalk that led to the library, checking for the presence of tall, beautiful young men with foul tempers.
She wished she had not forced the encounter with the mad Theater major. He had been rude, and had deserved some rudeness in return; but she was not pleased with her own part in the conversation, which felt in retrospect more like flirtation than reprimand. What had been the matter with him, though? It was much too early for people to be burning out on their studies and turning obstreperous. Of course, if he'd been standing there for some time, trying to read that damn poem, then almost any wild behavior could probably be excused.
As she crossed the campus, the figures of the poem were still in her mind—the precise walled garden; the red roses; the one half-open flower that the poet had, God knew why, set his heart on; the flat, formal characters with their peculiar names: Jalosie, Amis, Biautez, Reason, Bialacoil, Franchise, Pite. All harping on the rose, one rosebud in a garden full of the flowers. Janet's mind's ear presented to her her mother's voice, in the Scottish accent she remembered from Janet's great-grandmother, reading Burns on a winter's evening when the power was out.
"My luve is like a
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