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Show Anting Alone Page 283 had been a fairly good joke, as such jokes go, with subtle overtones blurring the line between the symbols of holy water and ashes, and so on. Polycarpana wondered what the professor's religious background might have been. He used passable grammar when he cared to, but he obviously was not Jewish. So he was probably what was commonly referred to here in the midwest, for liturgical rather than grammatical reasons, as a half-Catholic: an Episcopalian . As a half-Catholic he might be sensitive to the feelings that attend a nun's exclostration. But, even in the causeless and effectless state of mind he was in now, hunched out there mumbling about Elijah so loudly that she could hear him through the bathroom door, Dr. Edwine would certainly be surprised to know that it had been partly because of him that Sister Polycarpana had decided to stop being a nun. Partly because of the professor himself she had decided to write the letter to the Generalate Motherhouse in Tubingen, West Germany. Because of him she had forced herself to be patient while she awaited the ultra-formal High-German response: she calmly performed her normal duties of head-cheesemaking and Intruder-routing as though nothing at all unusual were impending in the future like a floating neutron bomb. And then had come the most difficult part: with a smirk Chaplain Wagstaff Bopp had shown her the groveling letter of request that she was expected to fill out: On bended knee, nay, prostrate before thee, 0 most Holy Father, I do beseech thee to grant thy humble servant, (fill in the blank), dispensation from his/her (circle one) perpetual vows to the community of (fill in the |