Five: In which an Education is Squandered

Her father, however, was a sweetheart of Caligula, and Edith and her lupine sisters were educated classically, and thoroughly grounded in the thought of the pre-Socratics, the Vienna Circle, Foucault's Pendulum, Semiotics of Chaffinch, Electronic Engineering, the Pre-Raphaelites, Bicarbonate of Soda, Forensics and Whispering, Post-Fordism and Pi R Squared, the Vernacular Arhictecture of Moths, Existential Counting, the Flying Arrow Paradox, Plebian Metaphysics, How to Make Mustard in Difficult Circumstances, e.g. in a Tree, Duck-Rabbit, Real Numbers.

In reality, Edith spent little time in lessons, borne by the inexorable winds of tragedy on relentless far-flung misadventures.