Read Online The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow - Free Book Online

of innocence and the quintessence of suggestiveness, Londa took my hand, led me into the biography alcove, and stamped my cheek with a moist kiss.
    â€œI’ll never forget Herr Hammerschmidt’s charity, and I’ll never forget your charity either,” she told me, pursing her lips. “I hope you’ll always be my teacher, Mason, even after I get my conscience back.”
    Â 
    A BORROWED AX , a beech tree, an ampoule of radium extract. Three physical objects that had figured crucially in my efforts to rehabilitate Londa, each with a unique essence, its axness, treeness, ampoularity. But as Jean-Paul Sartre reminds us, in the case of human beings this metaphysic is reversed: a person’s existence precedes his essence—he is a subject among objects. The danger, says Sartre, following Heidegger, is that he will “fall” into the world of objects, becoming ever after the prisoner of arbitrary strictures masquerading as universal principles. And so it was that I resolved to give Londa a taste of Sartrean existential freedom, confronting her with a dilemma beyond the competence of any canon.
    The conundrum was one that Sartre himself had devised, concerning a student whose elder brother has died in the German offensive of 1940. The student resolves to join the Free French and help defeat the Nazi beasts who killed his brother, but his invalid mother wants him to stay home. He is her only consolation, and she can’t adequately care for herself.
    To minimize the strain on Londa’s imagination, I decided that the embittered student should be female. I cast Edwina as the mother. Though preoccupied with packing—in twenty-four hours she would join Charnock for a weeklong artificial-intelligence conference in Chicago, where they would implore the neural-network community not to make basket cases of their computers—Edwina gladly took the part, and in a matter of minutes, the two actors had fully immersed themselves in the bedeviling scenario.
    â€œ S’il te plaît, Madeleine—reconsider,” Edwina gasped. “We’ve already lost your brother. I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.”
    â€œClaude would want me to avenge his death,” Londa said.
    â€œClaude would want you to look after me,” Edwina insisted.
    â€œIf I stay here, I’ll spend every waking minute thinking of the Resistance.” Londa grimaced and winced, as impressive an impersonation of psychic torment as I’d ever seen. “On the other hand, if I join the Resistance, I’ll spend every waking minute thinking of you. ”
    â€œExactly my point,” Edwina said. “Stay with me.”
    â€œBut, oh, Maman, consider the implications of driving the Germans out of France! Thousands of mothers—not just you, thousands will get to spend their dotages with sons and daughters who might’ve otherwise fallen into the Nazis’ clutches!”
    Edwina cupped her palms around Londa’s shoulders, drawing the child so close that their noses practically touched. “Dearest Madeleine, how can you sacrifice my happiness to this futile business of sniping at Nazis? How can you make a bargain like that?”
    â€œI can make such a bargain because…”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œBecause…”
    â€œI’m listening.”
    A tremulous moan broke from Londa’s throat. She lurched away, rushing toward the conquistador. “Shit, Mason, you’re doing it again ! You’re trying to drive me crazy!”
    â€œLonda, that assertion gained nothing from the word ‘shit,’” Edwina said.
    â€œMy head’s spinning,” Londa said. “I need…”
    â€œA rule?” I suggested. “A binding principle? An eleventh commandment?”
    Gasping like the carp she’d almost murdered, Londa slumped against Alonso. “The antimalarial drug quinine comes from the cinchona tree! In Riemann geometry a curved