I generally have more work available than I care to handle; my rates are reasonable and my work is good, with a B-minus guaranteed. For several years I also took examinations for unprepared students, but I’ve dropped this recently. The challenge it once held has gone out of it, and only the tedium remains. A good doctoral thesis, on the other hand, takes quite a bit of meticulous research, all of which I hugely enjoy.

I had cleaned up a thesis on Lenin’s views of the Paris Commune before heading upstate for the Latvian encampment and I took on two more assignments shortly after my return: a study of English class structure as represented in Jane Austen’s novels and a shorter paper on the causes of the First Balkan War. These were easy topics for me, so much so that almost all of my footnotes were legitimate. I usually invent a large portion of them, but in this case it was hardly necessary. I wrote the papers and took my money.

And, in the course of all of this, I ate my usual five meals a day, sorted and read my mail, went to various meetings and lectures, listened to a set of Siamese language records – a difficult tongue, by the way, and a positively mind-freezing alphabet – and generally went about the business of life. Part of the business of life was the careful task of ignoring Karlis Mielovicius and his true love in Latvia.

This would have been easier if Karlis had not kept reminding me of my promise. He wasn’t an absolute pest. On the contrary, he was so patient and understanding that I was soon consumed with guilt. But he filled my mailbox with little reminders – a picture of the girl, a letter he had received from someone who knew her, a variety of news clippings referring to Latvia, that sort of thing.