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her. By the end of each of these days she felt exhausted and found her lectures in the evening almost relaxing, relieved that there was something to take her mind off the fierce tension in the store, which lay heaviest around her counter. She wished she had not been singled out to stand at this counter and wondered if, in time, she would be moved to another part of the store.

Eilis loved her room, loved putting her books at the table opposite the window when she came in at night and then getting into her pyjamas and the dressing gown she had bought in one of the sales and her warm slippers and spending an hour or more before she went to bed looking over the lecture notes and then rereading the manuals on bookkeeping and accounting she had bought. Her only problem remained the law lectures. She enjoyed watching the gestures that Mr. Rosenblum made and the way he spoke, sometimes acting out an entire case for them, the litigants vividly described even if they were a company, but neither she nor any of the other students she spoke to knew what was expected of them, how this might appear as a question in an examination paper. Since Mr. Rosenblum knew so much she wondered if he might expect all of them to have the same detailed knowledge of cases and what they meant, and precedents, and the judgments, prejudices and peculiarities of individual judges.

It worried her enough to decide to explain to him exactly what her problem was. Just as he spoke quickly in his lectures, moving from one case to another, from what a certain law could mean in theory to how it had been applied up to then, so he disappeared as soon as the lecture was over, as though he had another pressing appointment. Eilis determined to sit in the front row and approach him the very second he had finished speaking, but as it came to the time she was nervous. She hoped that he would not think that she was criticizing him; she also worried that he might begin talking in a way that she would not understand. She had never come across anyone like him before. He reminded her of waiters in some cafés near Fulton Street who had no patience, who needed her to make up her mind about everything there and then and always had a further question for her no matter what she asked for, if she wanted small or large, or if she wanted it heated or with mustard. In Bartocci’s she had learned to be brave and decisive with the customers, but once she herself was a customer she knew she was too hesitant and slow.

She would have to approach Mr. Rosenblum. He seemed so clever and he knew so much that she still wondered as she walked towards the podium how he would respond to a simple request. Once she had his attention, however, she found that she had become, without too much effort or hesitation, almost poised.

“Is there a book I could buy that would help me with this part of the course?” she asked.

Mr. Rosenblum appeared puzzled and did not reply.

“Your lectures are interesting,” she said, “but I’m worried about the exam.”

“You like them?” He seemed younger now than he did when he was addressing all of the students on the law.

“Yes,” she said, and smiled. She was surprised at herself, that she had not stammered. She did not think she was even blushing.

“Are you British?” he asked.

“No, Irish.”

“All the way from Ireland.” He spoke as though to himself.

“I wondered if you could recommend another textbook or a manual that I can study for the exams.”

“You look worried.”

“I don’t know if the notes I’m taking or the books I have are enough.”

“You want to read more?”

“I would like to have a book that I could study.”

He looked around the lecture hall, which was emptying quickly. He seemed deep in thought, as though the question perplexed him.

“There are some good books on basic corporate law.”

She presumed that he was about to give her the names of these books, but he stopped for a moment.

“Do you think I am going too fast?”

“No. I’m just not sure my notes will be enough for the exam.”

He opened his briefcase and took out a notepad.

“Are you the only Irish student here?”

“I think so.”

She watched him as he wrote a number of titles on a blank sheet of paper.

“There’s a