Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

The weather grew cold as we progressed in a northwesterly direction to encounter three Continental Rationalists, three British Empiricists, and three German Idealists. Cunning minds indeed, to have arranged themselves in geographical triads.
    “I think, therefore I am?” It was just after Christmas vacation and Esther, fresh from the homestead in Chicago, was in a querulous mood.
    “I think, therefore I am? I don’t get it. It doesn’t sound authentic.”
    “But it’s as simple as can be!” Gabrielle exclaimed. “He wants to start from scratch. How do you know you’re there? Because someone is asking that question.”
    “Yes,” said Esther, “I realize that much. But before I even ask the question—not that I personally would ever ask such a question, I have never had such high-class doubts. But all right, suppose I had. Before I would even hear that clever little voice asking that clever little question—God almighty, I feel, I touch, I smell, transitively, that is. I mean, thinking is a pretty advanced thing. If the guy wants to be primitive he’s got a long way to go, if you ask me. Throw me one of those cigarettes over there, would you, Lydia?”
    Among the chewed pencils, tangled beads, hairbrush crammed with shed gold hair, and crumpled paper on Esther’s dresser top, were half a dozen open sample packs of cigarettes. I reached over and picked up a miniature blue box with white and yellow trim, containing six cigarettes. “Hit Parades. Hit Parades are the absolute worst, Esther.” I tossed them over.
    “I know.” She shrugged. “But listen, they’re free.”
    We didn’t yet know about tar and nicotine. Once a week bland-faced young salesmen in business suits walked through the smoking section of the library offering free samples of atrocious new brands. Esther accepted them indiscriminately; when the young men pulled out their market-research questionnaires she responded that they were all terrible, but she would take another of each, thank you. She seemed always short of money, and practiced other small and arbitrary economies—denying herself a four-dollar scarf in winter, or a dollar movie at the Student Center. Her father provided a checking account, but she used it as little as possible. I imagine that self-denial made her feel closer to this father who barely acknowledged her existence and also warned her brothers against the corruptions of capitalism.
    She lit up a Hit Parade and tossed the match, still aflame, across her bed into the heavy, mud-colored ashtray she had made in high school and brought with her all the way from Chicago. She was proud of it. She said it was the only decent thing she had ever made with her own two hands besides sandwiches and stews.
    “Esther, someday you may set this place on fire. I worry when I get into bed and you’re still smoking in the dark. I can see the little orange circle flashing around.”
    “Sorry.” Esther leaned over to reach her ashtray and blew out the match; her breath sent up a black spray that drifted down to settle on the bedspread. “Oh well. Sorry again.” She tried to brush off the ashes but they smudged. “Anyhow, there is one thing I like about Descartes. Here. ‘To accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so ... nothing more than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I would have no occasion to doubt it.’ In other words, don’t believe anything until you’ve proven it for yourself.”
    “Well ... not exactly,” said Nina. “Not in science. It would be absurd to start from scratch every time you devised an experiment. Some things we take on faith, from past research.”
    “Nothing on faith! Nothing on faith! Isn’t that what it says right here? I don’t believe there’s an unconscious mind. I don’t believe there’s a God. I’m not even convinced there are little protons and electrons. Give me a microscope, let me see for myself.”
    “I’ll vouch for them,” said