the classes and look on and take it all in and forget about marks or credits? It was a case of honor among honorable people, and the content meant more than the form, and marks were really a bit silly anyway, werenât they, when you knew youâd always get an A? My plan was strengthened by the fact that the college had just dropped the second year of required science for the classes after me anyway, so my class was the last to suffer under the old ruling.
Mr. Manzi was in perfect agreement with my plan. I think it flattered him that I enjoyed his classes so much I would take them for no materialistic reason like credit and an A, but for the sheer beauty of chemistry itself. I thought it was quite ingenious of me to suggest sitting in on the chemistry course even after Iâd changed over to Shakespeare. It was quite an unnecessary gesture and made it seem I simply couldnât bear to give chemistry up.
Of course, I would never have succeeded with this scheme if I hadnât made that A in the first place. And if myClass Dean had known how scared and depressed I was, and how I seriously contemplated desperate remedies such as getting a doctorâs certificate that I was unfit to study chemistry, the formulas made me dizzy and so on, Iâm sure she wouldnât have listened to me for a minute, but would have made me take the course regardless.
As it happened, the Faculty Board passed my petition, and my Class Dean told me later that several of the professors were touched by it. They took it as a real step in intellectual maturity.
I had to laugh when I thought about the rest of that year. I went to the chemistry class five times a week and didnât miss a single one. Mr. Manzi stood at the bottom of the big, rickety old amphitheater, making blue flames and red flares and clouds of yellow stuff by pouring the contents of one test tube into another, and I shut his voice out of my ears by pretending it was only a mosquito in the distance and sat back enjoying the bright lights and the colored fires and wrote page after page of villanelles and sonnets.
Mr. Manzi would glance at me now and then and see me writing, and send up a sweet little appreciative smile. I guess he thought I was writing down all those formulas not for exam time, like the other girls, but because his presentation fascinated me so much I couldnât help it.
4
I donât know just why my successful evasion of chemistry should have floated into my mind there in Jay Ceeâs office.
All the time she talked to me, I saw Mr. Manzi standing on thin air in back of Jay Ceeâs head, like something conjured up out of a hat, holding his little wooden ball and the test tube that billowed a great cloud of yellow smoke the day before Easter vacation and smelt of rotten eggs and made all the girls and Mr. Manzi laugh.
I felt sorry for Mr. Manzi. I felt like going down to him on my hands and knees and apologizing for being such an awful liar.
Jay Cee handed me a pile of story manuscripts and spoke to me much more kindly. I spent the rest of the morning reading the stories and typing out what I thought of them on the pink Interoffice Memo sheets and sending them into the office of Betsyâs editor to be read by Betsy the next day. Jay Cee interrupted me now and then to tell me something practical or a bit of gossip.
Jay Cee was going to lunch that noon with two famous writers, a man and a lady. The man had just sold six short stories to the New Yorker and six to Jay Cee. This surprised me, as I didnât know magazines bought stories in lots of six, and I was staggered by the thought of the amount of money six stories would probably bring in. Jay Cee said she had to be very careful at this lunch, because the lady writer wrote stories too, but she had never had any in the New Yorker and Jay Cee had only taken one from her in five years. Jay Cee had to flatter the more famous man at the same time as she was careful not to hurt the
Mr. Manzi was in perfect agreement with my plan. I think it flattered him that I enjoyed his classes so much I would take them for no materialistic reason like credit and an A, but for the sheer beauty of chemistry itself. I thought it was quite ingenious of me to suggest sitting in on the chemistry course even after Iâd changed over to Shakespeare. It was quite an unnecessary gesture and made it seem I simply couldnât bear to give chemistry up.
Of course, I would never have succeeded with this scheme if I hadnât made that A in the first place. And if myClass Dean had known how scared and depressed I was, and how I seriously contemplated desperate remedies such as getting a doctorâs certificate that I was unfit to study chemistry, the formulas made me dizzy and so on, Iâm sure she wouldnât have listened to me for a minute, but would have made me take the course regardless.
As it happened, the Faculty Board passed my petition, and my Class Dean told me later that several of the professors were touched by it. They took it as a real step in intellectual maturity.
I had to laugh when I thought about the rest of that year. I went to the chemistry class five times a week and didnât miss a single one. Mr. Manzi stood at the bottom of the big, rickety old amphitheater, making blue flames and red flares and clouds of yellow stuff by pouring the contents of one test tube into another, and I shut his voice out of my ears by pretending it was only a mosquito in the distance and sat back enjoying the bright lights and the colored fires and wrote page after page of villanelles and sonnets.
Mr. Manzi would glance at me now and then and see me writing, and send up a sweet little appreciative smile. I guess he thought I was writing down all those formulas not for exam time, like the other girls, but because his presentation fascinated me so much I couldnât help it.
4
I donât know just why my successful evasion of chemistry should have floated into my mind there in Jay Ceeâs office.
All the time she talked to me, I saw Mr. Manzi standing on thin air in back of Jay Ceeâs head, like something conjured up out of a hat, holding his little wooden ball and the test tube that billowed a great cloud of yellow smoke the day before Easter vacation and smelt of rotten eggs and made all the girls and Mr. Manzi laugh.
I felt sorry for Mr. Manzi. I felt like going down to him on my hands and knees and apologizing for being such an awful liar.
Jay Cee handed me a pile of story manuscripts and spoke to me much more kindly. I spent the rest of the morning reading the stories and typing out what I thought of them on the pink Interoffice Memo sheets and sending them into the office of Betsyâs editor to be read by Betsy the next day. Jay Cee interrupted me now and then to tell me something practical or a bit of gossip.
Jay Cee was going to lunch that noon with two famous writers, a man and a lady. The man had just sold six short stories to the New Yorker and six to Jay Cee. This surprised me, as I didnât know magazines bought stories in lots of six, and I was staggered by the thought of the amount of money six stories would probably bring in. Jay Cee said she had to be very careful at this lunch, because the lady writer wrote stories too, but she had never had any in the New Yorker and Jay Cee had only taken one from her in five years. Jay Cee had to flatter the more famous man at the same time as she was careful not to hurt the
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