The Angel of the Crows

by Katherine Addison

England was not my home, and I only wished I knew where home might be.

“I work for anyone who has an interesting problem.

“No … yes … maybe, I don’t know.” “Well, that was comprehensive,” he said dryly.

The butterfly—or moth—isn’t the same creature as the caterpillar, except that it is exactly the same creature, which you can prove with a very little exertion in natural history.”

He would periodically ask for my opinion; since I was not listening to him, my answers were rather hit or miss, but since he was not listening to me, being too enthralled with the saga of his own health, it hardly mattered.

“It’s clear so far as it goes. But then it isn’t clear at all.

but he comes up with a theory and then moves the facts around to match it. The problem is that he’s so frequently correct, he’s gotten out of the habit of imagining that he could be wrong.”

“Curiosity trumps most things.”

They drew close together, but kept going, there being both courage and foolishness in numbers.