Marya raised her eyes to his and saw how keenly, and with what apprehension, he was watching her. Why was he afraid, she wondered; had people been talking about her to him?—talking about the Knauers? Was he afraid she might say something he didn’t want to hear?

She knew he was waiting for her to leave. She could see the perspiration beading on his short upper lip—the faint feverish blush to his cheeks. Something turned coldly in her heart, a key in a lock, knowing, smirking, bitter. Marya heard herself say scornfully, “Yeah, thanks, I can spell.”

ONE AFTERNOON WHEN the old radiators were knocking and the room was overheated and nothing seemed to be going right—when even the butts of Schwilk’s humor sat dumb and unmoved as lumps of cotton batting—he suddenly lost his temper and began raging at them. They were hopeless, he said. They were matter—inanimate matter—and he should have known better than to try to “inspire” them.

The outburst lasted five minutes or more. Schwilk paced from one end of the room to the other, his hair rippling, his pale gaze flashing, so disgusted, so furious, why had he tried to fashion silk purses out of sows’ ears!—until finally the tantrum ran down and the classroom was unnaturally silent and Marya saw that Mr. Schwilk was a ridiculous figure in a brown tweed coat too big for him across the shoulders. Breathless, nearly panting, he looked out at them and said suddenly, “Well—I didn’t mean to say all that—please forgive my outburst.”

And long afterward it was a joke, whispered, or said daringly aloud in Schwilk’s very presence: “Please forgive my outburst!”

(The joke acquired arcane meanings, developed in unpredictable and always hilarious directions: Marya overheard boys who weren’t in the class, ninth-grade boys who probably didn’t know the origin of the remark, poking at one another in the hall and sniggering over “liverwurst”—as in, “Please forgive my liverwurst!” And again her heart tightened against Schwilk, that fool Schwilk, who deserved all that would happen to him.)

LATE WINTER AND rain was being blown against the windows, and the high-ceilinged room was still overheated, drugged and slow, impervious to Schwilk’s excited patter. He paced about, gesturing with a stubby piece of chalk, speaking of action—the consequences of action—the way truth isn’t absolute but fluid and mutable and willed—yes, willed.

Marya watched him coldly, her head slightly lowered, her forehead creased. What the hell is he talking about, she wondered; does he really imagine anyone understands, or is even listening? Schwilk, Schwilk: that idiotic name. She inked it out, blotted and tore at the cardboard cover of her notebook. Schwilk: let him throw himself into the canal, let him drown: she wouldn’t raise a hand to save him.

Since he had pleaded with them to forgive his “outburst” he’d surrendered something of his authority. Or, perhaps, he was simply wearing out, wearing down—his energy wasn’t limitless after all. Poor high-flying Schwilk, Marya thought, discovering that Innisfail isn’t so contemptible after all: that it will very likely survive his scorn.