Thénard drained the last drop of wine from his cup, then grabbed his hat and made to leave.
Girard hurriedly pulled him back. "Where are you going?"
"Of course, to prepare my application." Thénard's face was flushed red; whether from the alcohol or sheer excitement, no one could tell. "Then I'll revise classical literature. I swear, this time I'll never complain about Mr. Cicero again!"
.??m
Cicero occupied no small portion of Classical Literature, and he was also the part Thénard found most troublesome.
Early the next morning, Thénard, who had fallen asleep sprawled over his desk, was startled awake by the church bells. The first thing he saw was the half-finished doctoral application, already dampened by his saliva. He had drunk a little too much yesterday afternoon and fallen asleep without realizing it.
He pulled another sheet of paper from the bookshelf, intending to copy out the application, but his pen froze in midair.
Yesterday, emboldened by drink, he had filled in "synthetic explosives" as his research direction without a moment's hesitation. But now that he had sobered up, he remembered that he seemed to have no foundation in that field at all.
After hesitating for a moment, he decided it would be better to discuss it with Mr. Campa.
When Thénard stepped off the Steam Tram at Sorbonne Road Station, he looked up to find more than a hundred students gathered before the gates of the University of Paris, noisily clamoring as though they were fighting over something.
There seemed to be only one bookstore there. He muttered curiously, "Has someone published an important academic work?"
He walked over to the bookstore but could not squeeze his way in at all. He only heard the students discussing loudly, "She's absolutely a genius. Leander said he stayed up all