Daphne and Dostoevsky

The middle of my junior year at Stanford, I wasn’t sleeping well; my appetite was off, and I was irritable. The woman I was dating told me that I was moody. At the student health center I met Dr. Lillian Tan, an attractive Chinese woman who seemed somewhat bewildered. After describing my problems, I said, “Perhaps I’ve contracted an illness that provokes moodiness?”

She checked my temperature, blood pressure, knee reflexes, and looked into my eyes and mouth. “Any skin problems?”

“During puberty zits blossomed at precisely the worst time. The morning before the senior prom, I woke up with an angry zit on my forehead the size of Mt. Vesuvius just before it erupted. I phoned my date and told her that I had contracted St. Vitus Dance, a medieval disease.”

“It’s still around,” Dr. Tan said. “Now it’s called Sydenham Chorea. You’re pasty; Caucasians become chalky when they’re sick or stressed. Problems? Girls? Grades?”

“My grades are fine. A woman I was dating dumped me. She thinks I’m moody and juvenile.”

“Are you?”

“Daphne, the woman I was dating, fashions herself a high intellectual. She loves Ingmar Bergman’s movies. His movies are incomprehensible; like I’m lost in a Swedish blizzard. Last weekend on our third date, we went to a Bergman Festival in San Francisco and watched four mind-numbing films. That did it: I told her that I loved movies like Fort Apache and The Horse Soldiers. Daphne said my taste in movies was juvenile; worse, my moods were volatile. I called her a pseudo intellectual; we haven’t talked since. I never really cared for her.”

“Men say such things when relationships end,” Dr. Tan closed the subject with a sad shrug. “You seem mildly depressed; I suggest that you see Dr. Sinclair, a psychologist here. I’ll forward my notes from this conversation. Between you and me, watch yourself; he’s… what’s the word? Sardonic, that’s it.”

Late the next afternoon, I met Dr. Sinclair. Probably in his late thirties, he was dressed in cords and a tweed jacket. Talking about Daphne’s taste in movies, Dr. Sinclair and I discovered that we both liked John Wayne westerns. Changing the subject, he asked, “What courses are you taking this quarter?”

“I’m a history major with an art history minor. This quarter, I’m taking Early French Impressionists, upper division Spanish, British history since 1918, and Dostoevsky. I’m reading one Dostoevsky novel per week. So far it’s been: The Idiot, Demons, The House of the Dead, Poor Folk, Humiliated and Insulted, and Crime and Punishment.”

“Uplifting titles,” Dr. Sinclair said with an ironic smile, “Your grades so far?”

“B+ on midterm and an A on the paper.”

“Why that particular course?”

“Russia has always fascinated me. I’ve taken all the Russian history courses offered and branched out with Dostoevsky.”

He put his pen down. “Almost every winter quarter, a slightly depressed student shows up here. It’s that Dostoevsky course.” He rolled his eyes, “I’ve told the Russian Department that they shouldn’t schedule all that Dostoevsky during winter quarter, but they won’t listen. Imagine reading Crime and Punishment during a Russian winter.”

“Maybe that’s why Russians drink so much.”

“And you, you’ve doubled down with Bergman movies.”

“What should I do?”

“For starters, no more Bergman. What about Daphne?” He said.

“We’re finished. What about Dostoevsky? There are two more novels before the final.”

“Do something enjoyable before and after reading those two,” he snapped his fingers. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is playing at the Varsity Theater; it’s great. John Ford directed with John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Lee Marvin.”

“I’ll do that. Anything else?” I asked. “Pills or therapy?”

“You don’t need those. Cheer up; spring is coming. Let me know your final Dostoevsky grade.”

“I will.”

I left a phone message for Dr. Sinclair saying that I nailed the final and got an A- for the course. He phoned me, “So you’re doing okay?”

“Yeah, eating and sleeping well. Daphne and I ran into each other. After some starts and stops, we apologized and shook hands. You know, I didn’t like her that much anyway.”

“That’s a rationalization.” Dr. Sinclair said. “And a pretty lame one, if you ask me.”

Dr. Tan came to mind. I concluded she and Dr. Sinclair had a relationship that had ended, perhaps with the rationalization he and I had employed. “Enjoy the spring, Doctor.”