BELLA

(To the audience) I notice that he’s dressed a little light for the weather … a canvas gas-station-attendant jacket … worn thin at the elbows.

(To Christopher) Are you warm enough in that?

CHRISTOPHER

I’m from Vermont, son. Snow is like my sibling.

(Beat.)

BELLA

So what can I do for you, Christopher Dunn?

CHRISTOPHER

I just wanted to let you know how much I like your class.

BELLA

Well, that’s nice to hear.

CHRISTOPHER

Yeah, it’s a good class.

BELLA

Thank you.

(To the audience) He expresses his fascination with Raskolnikov.

I say, “He’s a wonderfully complex character.”

(To Christopher) The notion of counterbalancing a carefully plotted murder with good deeds is fascinating stuff.

CHRISTOPHER

I just appreciate how he feels so much.

BELLA

Yes, I suppose that’s true. He’s most certainly not some callous droid.

(To the audience) And then just like that, Christopher seems somewhere else.

(To Christopher) Christopher.

Christopher.

Christopher Dunn.

CHRISTOPHER

Huh.

BELLA

I thought I’d lost you there for a second.

CHRISTOPHER

I’m here.

BELLA

Are you okay?

CHRISTOPHER

I’m fine.

BELLA

Are you sure?

CHRISTOPHER

I said I’m here.

BELLA

I was going to ask you if you thought Dostoevsky loves his main character.

CHRISTOPHER

I don’t think affection has anything to do with it.

BELLA

(To the audience) When asked to expound—

CHRISTOPHER

Dostoevsky didn’t create Raskolnikov to elicit our sympathies.

BELLA

Then wh—

CHRISTOPHER

To inspire moral fascination.

BELLA

You like cutting me off.

CHRISTOPHER

It’s a bad habit.

BELLA

Well—

CHRISTOPHER

You’d like me to apologize.

BELLA

Knock yourself out.

CHRISTOPHER

Sorry.

(Long pause.)

BELLA

“Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once.”

CHRISTOPHER

Who said that, Dr. Seuss?

BELLA

Dostoevsky.

(To the audience) He studies me. It feels as if he knows how few hours of sleep I’ve been getting a night.

CHRISTOPHER

(Coy) How old was he when he died?

BELLA

I believe he was upwards of sixty.

CHRISTOPHER

He was actually fifty-nine. He died of a pulmonary hemorrhage, likely exacerbated by emphysema.

BELLA

Did you Google that?

(To the audience) He doesn’t answer. He simply sits there.

I expect him to gloat about knowing something I didn’t, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. I’m starting to get the feeling that he just wants to hang out.

CHRISTOPHER

When Dostoevsky said that thing about being left alone without books do you think he knew he was offering the world an unassailable platitude?

BELLA

I have no id—

CHRISTOPHER

As the words were elegantly leaving his mouth he could probably see them carving themselves into the side of some fabled oak tree.

BELLA

I’m not sure there were oak trees in nineteenth-century Russia. Maybe a birch.

CHRISTOPHER

The side of Mount Elbrus then … These days the novelist has to either be really good at Twitter or commit suicide.

BELLA

To what end exactly?

CHRISTOPHER

To have his work matter.

BELLA

Wow.

CHRISTOPHER

Wow what.

BELLA

That’s not at all cynical.