MAJOR ARCANA: Part One, Chapter 1

The Logic of My Face

Major Arcana is a serialized novel for paid subscribers. For more details, both about the novel and about subscriber amenities, please see the Preface.

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PART ONE

Chapter 1. | The Logic of My Face

Simon Magnus felt two ways about teaching in what they called “the Cathedral.” As an aesthete since childhood, Simon Magnus would never deny the enlivening, elevating effect—the effervescence in the pit of the stomach—Simon Magnus experienced almost every time Simon Magnus, upon returning from a trip out of the city, saw the Cathedral from two or three miles away, posted alone against the sky, almost every time Simon Magnus passed through the revolving door into the Cathedral’s vast common room, where students studied at wooden tables or on stone ledges amid marble pillars supporting a 50-foot vault. Simon Magnus could not fail, however, to contemplate the contrast between the Cathedral’s imposing greatness and what Simon Magnus was tasked with doing within its limestone grandeur.