Page 26 of Katabasis
“Had more of a comment, not a question.
“Wouldn’t accept papers written in the first person.
“Turned his exam papers over very loudly.
“Still asks people what they got on their A-levels.
“Still tells people what he got onhisA-levels.
“Made his wife call himDoctor. He’s a medievalist, mind you.
“Now,thatone keeps saying he went to school in Boston and expecting everyone to know what he means. Every few years the other Shades gang up on him and brick him up behind the stacks.”
They passed a series of rooms overflowing with texts. “Book hoarders,” Moore explained.
“Why would you hoard books in a library?”
“To prove that you’ve found them,” said Moore. “To prove you knowofthem. To prove you have proximity to them. But reading them, that’s too much.”
At this point Alice had made up her mind Professor Grimes could not have been sentenced to Pride. She felt indignant, actually, at the thought of this gossipy little man lumping Grimes in with these posers and imposters. Yes, Professor Grimes was occasionally very rude; yes, the whole Royal Academy called him arrogant behind his back; yes, he habitually reduced undergraduates to tears. But weren’t all great thinkers of their generation a little prickly? And hadn’t he earned his prickle? She recalled that Aristotle distinguished between proper and improper pride. The worthy man could justly boast of his accomplishments, so long as he had actually done them. Professor Grimes could only be charged with behaving as befit his station, which was lofty, and Alice really did not think this was as morally egregious as calling oneself a Marxist.
Anyhow, Professor Grimes hated peacocking. She knew this because once she had been caught up with the thrill of competition herself. At her first conference—after a dizzying night of cocktails with students from Oxford and London, all comparing the sizes of their stipends, their research budgets, who had recently published where—she had gone up to Professor Grimes in the hotel lobby and blustered, drunk on superiority, “Can you believe they don’t have aproseminarat Imperial?” She had thought he might laugh, that they could share this condescension. But he had looked down at her with such blistering disdain. “Don’t play stupid games, Law.”
Peter was there; he snickered. And Alice spent the night in red-faced shame.
It was a lesson worth learning. She had not repeated this mistake. Those who had nothing substantial to brag about bragged the loudest. Stay silent and ignore the chattering crowd—this was proof you had something real to be proud of.
She fell back so she could speak to Peter. Moore did not notice. He had worked himself up into a rant about psychoanalysts, and his arms flapped so vehemently that should Alice and Peter have kept pace, he might have whacked them in the face.
“He’s not here,” she murmured. “Let’s go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a waste of time.” Her irritation had sharpened to urgency. Every minute spent here was a minute in which Professor Grimes pushed further into Hell. “And Moore said we were the first from Cambridge in years, so he would have met him—”
“Well, maybe they didn’t cross paths.”
“Then let’s ditch him and search on our own. He’s a clown—”
“He’s not so bad.”
“He’s a petty gossip!”
“He’s the first Shade we’ve met who will explain anything to us,” said Peter. “We’ve no idea how Hell works, Law. We’ve got no other leads.”
“Aha!” Up ahead, Moore turned and waved enthusiastically. He gestured to a door. “Here we are. My office. Do come in.”
Alice had seen offices like Moore’smany times before. They were offices of decadent accretion, offices of men who had earned tenure back when earning tenure just involved being friends with the department head and who treated their space like a clubhouse until they grew old enough the university could boot them out. A massive, cluttered desk; plump armchairs; porcelain tea sets; memorabilia from trips to Asia and Africa—where Moore had found a Turkish carpet in the Underworld, Alice had no idea. Books overflowed from the shelves, lay scattered in piles on the floor and the desk. These included, she noticed, the aforementioned copy ofMeditations. Framed diplomas hung on every wall—from where, Alice had no idea, because she was not aware of any degree-granting accredited institutions in Hell.
“Please, please.” Moore ushered them in. “My little sanctuary. Be comfortable.”
Alice and Peter sat gingerly on the couch, while Moore bustled around his desk, muttering things like “If I’d known I’d have company...” and “Pardon the mess.”
“There we go!” He turned round and offered them a tobacco tin. “Smoke?”
They both shook their heads. Shrugging, Moore packed his own pipe, lit it, and sucked in with great relish. He exhaled. Thick smoke wafted into their faces. Peter suffered the mist with blinking, eye-watering fortuity. Alice coughed.
“So!” Moore plopped himself down across them and kicked his feet up on the ottoman. “A Cambridge man. What college, may I ask?”
