The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow Page A

achieve after I stop wrecking and burning things. While I can’t claim to understand this philosophy, despite Mason’s dazzling overview, I imagine there must be great rewards in living one’s life by Stoic principles. Am I equal to the challenge? There’s only one way to find out.
    During the ten minutes I spent with her essay, Londa reached the midpoint of Pride and Prejudice.
    â€œYou’re a good writer,” I told her.
    â€œYou think so?” she asked. “How good?”
    â€œVery good. Excellent, really.”
    â€œI’m not as good as this woman,” she said, tapping her novel. “Jane Austen makes me believe that Elizabeth Bennet is fucking alive.”
    â€œA pithy tribute, Londa, but how about curbing the profanity?”
    â€œOkay. Jane Austen doesn’t make me believe that Elizabeth Bennet is fucking alive.”
    I rolled my eyes and snorted. “You clearly got a lot out of my Stoicism chapter. But there’s a small problem. From these pages it almost sounds as if you intend to become a Stoic.”
    â€œOf course I do.”
    â€œStoicism died out fifteen centuries ago.”
    â€œQuetzie is a handsome devil,” the iguana said.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, the experiment has already started,” Londa said with a disconcerting grin. “Yesterday at lunch I had a smaller piece of pecan pie than usual, and I passed up the scoop of vanilla ice cream entirely. It’s like I said in my essay. ‘Just as nature abhors a vacuum, a Stoic abhors satiety.’ What’s more, as you may have noticed, I’ve stopped smoking.”
    â€œBut not swearing.”
    â€œI’m working on it.”
    â€œAnd how long do you plan to pursue this project?”
    â€œLong as I can. The hardest part will be to stop masturbating.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI’m rather well informed about sex,” she told me, as if I’d said she wasn’t. “I’ve read all the books. Fanny Hill. Justine. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I know there’s a positive side to fucking, but on the whole it’s messy and dangerous, wouldn’t you say?”
    I swiped my tongue across the roof of my mouth, as if to detach a popcorn husk. “Messy. Dangerous. Yes.”
    â€œA person could get a venereal disease.”
    â€œThis is true.”
    â€œDo you have a girlfriend, Mason?”
    â€œNot right now.”
    â€œWhat about in the past?”
    â€œSeveral girlfriends. You wrote a marvelous essay.”
    â€œDid you fuck them?”
    â€œWe’re drifting away from the topic.”
    She snickered and said, “Stoicism: putting pleasure in its place. The Stoics believed that in bearing pain without complaint, a mortal might transcend the mundane world and enter the eternal matrix of divine thought—so that’s part of my experiment, too.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œPain.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œPain is part of my experiment.”
    Several harsh and foreign chemicals flooded into my stomach. “Pain has nothing to teach you, Londa.”
    â€œNot according to chapter four.”
    â€œThe Stoics did not deliberately hurt themselves.”
    â€œI intend to build on their work.”
    The chemicals roiled around, interacting with the native acids.“Listen to me, Londa. You will not, under any conditions, you will not hurt yourself.”
    â€œLast night I snuffed out a candle with my hand.”
    She held up her left palm. A shudder of alarm passed through me. At the juncture of her head line and fate line, the very spot I’d massaged twenty-four hours earlier, lay a stark white blister.
    â€œFuck,” I said, frightened and confused but mostly angry.
    â€œA useful word, huh?”
    â€œI don’t believe this.”
    â€œI moaned and whimpered, but I didn’t shriek. I also did stuff with a rose thorn.” She extended her right thumb. An