Reading Dostoevsky

On the other side of this coffee shop, there is a very pretty girl reading Dostoevsky. I find myself glancing at her often—first because she is a very pretty girl, then because she is reading Dostoevsky. I feel like someone spotting a rare creature. Or maybe I feel like one of the creatures, one that has been looking a long time for another of its kind but, having discovered one, doesn't know what to do.

I want to ask her why she is reading Dostoevsky, as if the fact of a pretty girl reading Dostoevsky in a coffee shop requires an explanation of some sort, when in fact there is no reason why I should be surprised that a very pretty girl might enjoy reading Dostoevsky in a coffee shop. Is she a student? Is she the sort of person who wants to be well read and so reads important books? Perhaps she is fascinated with Russia and Russian culture. There are, after all, any number of reasons why a very pretty girl would be reading Dostoevsky in a coffee shop. 

She's very pretty and she reads with big eyes, as if she is as astonished as I am, and I decide I am not going to talk to her because nobody likes the guy who talks to you in a coffee shop when you're trying to read a book, especially if you are a very pretty girl reading Dostoevsky.

If I ask her why she is reading Dostoevsky, she will think that I dislike Dostoevsky, or that I am trying to impress her by having opinions about Dostoevsky, or that I want to talk to her, but not because I want about Dostoevsky: just because I am a man and she is a very pretty girl reading Dostoevsky. Of course, I *do* want to talk to her because she is a very pretty girl reading Dostoevsky, but that is not why I want to ask her why she is reading Dostoevsky.

Also, I'm not sure she could really answer the question, because, now that I think about it, I don't really know what makes me keep reading Dostoevsky. 

She looks up from the book and sees me, but I pretend not to have noticed that she is a very pretty girl or that she is reading Dostoevsky.

I wonder if anybody spotted me back then, when I was the one reading Dostoevsky in a coffee shop, and thought, *Oh look, there is a man reading Dostoevsky*, and wondered what it was that caused me to read it, and wondered as well what their own reasons had been, once upon a time, for reading Dostoevsky.