"We could go for another walk," Mr. Rebeck said.

"I don't want to go for another walk. We've walked all the grass off this place. Where we walk the bare earth follows. Like locusts."

"But you like it. You said you did."

Michael thought hard about scowling and was pleased when he remembered the feeling. "I do like it. But I don't like watching you get tired."

Mr. Rebeck started to say something, but Michael cut him off. "Because I can't. I can't get tired, and watching you breathe as if you were drinking the air bothers me. So let's not walk anywhere."

"All right," Mr. Rebeck said mildly. "We could play some chess, if you like."

"I don't want to play chess." Michael remembered petulance. "You have to make the moves for me. How do you think that makes me feel?"

Mr. Rebeck gazed at him pityingly. "Michael, Michael, you're making this so hard."

"Damn right," Michael said. "I don't give up easily." He grinned at Mr. Rebeck. "If I can't drink vodka and tomato juice any more I'm not drinking anybody's nepenthe. No chess. I don't like chess, anyway."

"I could read to you."

"Read what?" Michael asked suspiciously. "I didn't know you had books."

"The raven steals a couple for me down on Fourth Avenue every now and then," Mr. Rebeck said. "I've got some Swinburne."

Michael tried very hard to remember if he had liked Swinburne, and felt something only a doorstep away from terror when the name made no sound in his head. "Swinburne," he said aloud. He knew Mr. Rebeck was looking at him. My God, he thought, is it all going, then? Frantically he grabbed for the first familiar thing at hand, which happened to be his office number at the college; 1316, he thought, trying to curl up into the number, 1316, 1316, 1316. When it suddenly became 1613, he said quickly, "Swinburne. Yes, I know Swinburne. Didn't he once do a very long poem on the Circe theme?"