reached the car, diligent Pnin was perusing with difficulty Betty's last effort, which began, 'When we consider the mental climate wherein we all live, we cannot but notice -'
The conductor entered; did not awake the soldier; promised the women he would let them know when they would be about to arrive; and presently was shaking his head over Pnin's ticket. The Cremona stop had been abolished two years before.
'Important lecture!' cried Pnin. 'What to do? It is a catastroph!'
Gravely, comfortably, the grey-headed conductor sank into the opposite seat and consulted in silence a tattered book full of dog-eared insertions. In a few minutes, namely at 3.08, Pnin would have to get off at Whitchurch; this would enable him to catch the four o'clock bus that would deposit him, around six, at Cremona.
'I was thinking I gained twelve minutes, and now I have lost nearly two whole hours,' said Pnin bitterly. Upon which, clearing his throat and ignoring the consolation offered by the kind grey-head ('You'll make it'), he took off his reading glasses, collected his stone-heavy bag, and repaired to the vestibule of the car so as to wait there for the confused greenery skimming by to be cancelled and replaced by the definite station he had in mind.
2
Whitchurch materialized as scheduled. A hot, torpid expanse of cement and sun lay beyond the geometrical solids of various clean-cut shadows. The local weather was unbelievably summery for October. Alert, Pnin entered a waiting-room of sorts, with a needless stove in the middle, and looked around. In a solitary recess, one could make out the upper part of a perspiring young man who was filling out forms on the broad wooden counter before him.
'Information, please,' said Pnin. 'Where stops four o'clock bus to Cremona?'
'Right across the street,' briskly answered the employee without looking up.
'And where possible to leave baggage?'
'That bag? I'll take care of it.'
And with the national informality that always nonplussed Pnin, the young man shoved the bag into a corner of his nook.
'Quittance?' queried Pnin, Englishing the Russian for 'receipt' (kvtantsiya).
'What's that?'
'Number?' tried Pnin.
'You don't need a number,' said the fellow, and resumed his writing.
Pnin left the station, satisfied himself about the bus stop, and entered a coffee shop. He consumed a ham sandwich, ordered another, and consumed that too. At exactly five minutes to four, having paid for the food but not for an excellent toothpick which he carefully selected from a neat little cup in the shape of a pine cone near the cash register, Pnin walked back to the station for his bag.
A different man was now in charge. The first had been called home to drive his wife in all haste to the maternity hospital. He would be back in a few minutes.
'But I must obtain my valise!' cried Pnin.
The substitute was sorry but could not do a thing.
'It is there!' cried Pnin, leaning over and pointing.
This was unfortunate. He was still in the act of pointing when he realized that he was claiming the wrong bag. His index finger wavered. That hesitation was fatal.
'My bus to Cremona!' cried Pnin.
'There is another at eight,' said the man.
What was our poor friend to do? Horrible situation! He glanced streetward. The bus had just come. The engagement meant an extra fifty dollars. His hand flew to his right side. It was there, slava Bogu (thank God)! Very well! He would not wear his black suit - vot i vsyo (that's all). He would retrieve it on his way back. He had lost, dumped, shed many more valuable things in his day. Energetically, almost light-heartedly, Pnin boarded the bus.
He had endured this new stage of his journey only for a few city blocks when an awful suspicion crossed his mind. Ever since he had been separated from his bag, the tip of his left forefinger had been alternating with the proximal edge of his right elbow in checking a precious presence in his inside coat pocket. All of a sudden he brutally yanked it