Chapter 4 first quarter

Early in the morning, the famous bells of Wendale College are chiming in harmony. Lawrence G. Clements was a Wendale scholar whose only popular course was the philosophy of gesture. His wife, Joan, was a Pendleton schoolmate in the 1930s. Separated from daughter Isabel, who was her father's best student and was married in third grade to a graduate of the school who was currently working in a technical job in a far western state. The bells rang melodiously in the silvery sunlight.Looking toward the window, the framed view of the small town of Wendale—white-painted houses, blackened tree branches—is captured like a child with a simple sense of perspective lacking spatial depth. A picture painted of blue-gray hills; everything was covered with a beautiful hoarfrost; some parked cars shone in the light; Miss Dingval's body was as round as a young boar. My old Scotch terrier has come round Warren Street and Speyman's Lane; but the kindness of the neighbors, the beauty of the scenery, and the ever-changing bells cannot soften the season; In two weeks' time, after a contemplative break, the school year would enter its most depressing phase—the spring term, and the Clements, depressed and worried, lived alone in their airy old house. , and now the house lolled around them like some fool who had lost a third of his body weight, with flabby flesh and baggy clothes.After all, Isabel was too young and too immature, and they really didn't know much about her in-laws. They only saw some selected guests for the wedding in the rented hall, all of them with pale faces like macaroons. , the imaginative bride can see nothing without glasses.

The school bell, under the enthusiastic care of Dr. Robert Treborough, an activist in the music department, was still ringing in the wonderful air, and getting louder; Lawrence, blond, bald, unhealthily fat, was eating his The simple breakfast of oranges and lemons, while criticizing the head of the French Department, whom Joan was inviting to her home this evening to meet with Professor Entwistle of Godwin University. "Why on earth do you," he reprimanded, "invite that dry and annoying fellow, a stucco pillar of education, Braulenghi to our house?" "I like Ann Braulenghi," she said, nodding to reinforce her affirmation and affection. "A tacky old cat!" cried Laurence. "A poor old cat," murmured Joan--just as Dr. Treborough's clock died down and the telephone rang again in the hall.

Technically speaking, the artistry with which the narrator masterfully combines the conversations on both ends of the telephone lags far behind that of the room-to-room or window-to-window conversations in the back alleys of old towns, the old In towns where water is precious, donkeys suffer, blankets are sold in the streets, minarets of mosques, foreigners, melons, and echoes of the morning rippling.Joan strode briskly to the calling telephone, picked up the receiver and said "Hello" (eyebrows raised, eyes rolled) to a hollow, silent voice; An informal, steady pant, followed by the panting man saying in a cautious foreign accent: "Just a moment, please." - this is so absurd, he pants, maybe hums aha Yes, even a slight sigh, accompanied by the rustling sound of flipping through a small book.

"Hello!" she said again. "Are you," said the voice cautiously, "Mrs. Fell?" "No," Joan said before hanging up the phone. "Besides," she said, turning easily back into the kitchen, to her husband, who was tasting the bacon she was about to eat herself, "Jack Cockerell also thinks Braulenghi is a first-class executive. Man, you can't deny that." "Who's calling?" "Somebody's looking for some Fall or Mrs. Farr. You see, if you're going to disregard George's advice—" (referring to their family physician, Dr. O. Jo. Heim)

"Joan," said Laurence, feeling much better after eating the creamy bacon, "Joan, dear, did you forget that you told Margaret Thayer yesterday that you wanted a lodger?" ?” "Why, I forgot," said Joan—and the phone rang enthusiastically again. "Obviously," said the same voice, continuing naturally, "I have misused the informant's name. Are you Mrs. Clements?" "Yes," said Joan, Mrs. Clements. "I'm, uh," followed by a weird "poof" plosive. "I teach in the Russian class. Mrs. Fell, who's working half-day in the library right now, says—"

"Yes—Mrs. Thayer, I know. So, would you like to see that room?" He wants to see it.Come and have a look in about half an hour, okay?OK, she can wait at home.With a click, she hung up the phone. "Who's calling this time?" asked her husband, turning his head, leaning on the banister with his fat, freckled hands, and was about to seek some peace in the upstairs study. "A cracked ping-pong ball. Russian." "Professor Pnin, for God's sake!" cried Lawrence. "'I know him well: he's a brooch—'No, I will never allow that monster to live in my house."

He clambered up the stairs roughly.She asked behind her back: "Raul, did you finish that article last night?" "Almost." He had already turned the corner of the stairs—she heard the creak of his hands on the banister, followed by another pounding. "Got to get it done today. First I have to prepare for that damn EOS quiz." EOS refers to the most remarkable course he taught - "Evolution of Consciousness" (twelve students took this course, but not even a single indifferent believer), which begins and ends with the sentence A word that will someday be overquoted: the evolution of consciousness is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.