And the next the bright stars and face of the moon
and also ripe cucumbers, apples and pears.
Andrew pointed to the text.“What do you think it means?”
“Probably not much more than is obvious.She seems to be cataloging pleasures of life—things one would miss.”Dunning squinted to reread it.“Perhaps for Apollo in Hades.”
Andrew smiled at the man’s earnest interest.“It does seem to refer to death, doesn’t it?What little pleasures would you miss, Dunning?”
The impassive scholar appeared to give that serious thought.After a moment he said, “Sunlight of course?—”
Andrew raised a brow, giving him a schoolmaster’s best frown as if to say ‘you can do better.’
“—in the morning, on the Cam!”Dunning finished.
“Be honest, Geoff, what would you really miss?”
“Soft sheets, scones and butter, my good leather chair, a delicious beverage I receive at Christmas from a cousin who is a pastor in the glens, deep in the Highlands—but not one of them would be subject for high poetry.Those are domestic things.”
That was it then.Praxilla’s work—and Georgiana’s—dismissed in one blanket statement.
“High?”Andrew’s anger flared.“Who is to say what is high?”
Andrew could not think of any poet who wrote of everyday things.Neither the odes of Keats nor the oddity of Coleridge covered tea and scones.Perhaps they should.
“Love, ladies, nature, mythology–who decides what subjects are fit for poetry?”Andrew demanded.
Dunning didn’t take offense at Andrew’s vehemence.“Good question, old boy.The consensus of the scholarly community one supposes.Interesting question, that.”
“Can you think of one who wrote of scones and jam?”
Dunning looked surprised by the question but gave it serious thought.
“Not any of the respected poets.There’s that Scots fellow, Burns.He writes of domestic things.No scholars, certainly.”Dunning furrowed his brow.“Must be others.‘Pon thought, can’t think of any reason why one can’t make a verse of homely things.Praxilla did, didn’t she?”He smiled at Andrew.“Translating them, are you?”
“My partner is.”
Dunning raised his eyebrows as if to ask about the partner but didn’t voice it.“How is the work progressing?”he asked instead.
“Well enough.Some questions have arisen though.What do we know of Greek eating habits?”That is Georgiana’s question.She had asked what was known about the foods and other simple pleasures of ancient Greece.
“You mean, if they had no scones for comfort, what would they turn to?”The thought amused Dunning.
Andrew grinned back at him.
“Might be interesting to find out,” Dunning said.“Somewhere in this temple of knowledge we should be able to find that between us, old boy.Shall we have a go?What do you have so far?Old Featheringham the librarian will let us up in the stacks if I ask him.”
Georgiana would love this.It was a pity Old Featheringham would never have the pleasure of her curiosity and intelligence.
Hours passed before Andrew finally packed away his notes.Dunning was long gone.Andrew picked up the papers and made his way through the reading room to the gated entrance, passing under brilliantly painted glass of the arched transom, burnished to a dark gold in the setting sun.The students who passed with him ignored its message: Honi soit qui mal y pense.In English, it meant “shamed be the person who thinks ill of another.”They don’t often practice it either.
Old Featheringham scowled when he passed, reminding Andrew how lonely he felt.Dunning’s company had cheered him, but Dunning wasn’t Georgiana.
God how I miss her!He ached to have her by his side.His dialogs with Georgiana delvedlayer by layer down into the ideas of the poets, prodded on by her persistent questioning.Together they produced far better work than either of them could have managed alone.
Andrew turned toward the Cam, grateful his improved gait let him walk across the commons to the river.Georgiana’s voice, its throaty undertones pitched exactly right to recite the women’s works, aroused him even in memory.Memories of her lilac scent were still his nemesis; now they carried the added burden of remembered love-making.
He worried that she might never come back.He tried to push the thought from his mind, but fear lurked in the shadows of darkening Cambridge.She had been gone barely a week, but each day felt to him like a thousand years.The first set of questions arrived yesterday; he would have to be content with them.For tonight, he would compose his response.He would give as generously of his mind as he longed to give generously of his very self.
