I have had this experience three times now, on three different occasions, in admittedly similar circumstances, but not similar enough to explain the coincidence: I am speaking from a podium to a fairly large audience on the topics
of — to put it broadly — evil, suffering, and God; I have been talking for several minutes about Ivan Karamazov, and about things I have written on Dostoevsky, to what
seems general approbation; then, for some reason or other, I happen to remark that, considered purely as an artist, Dostoevsky is immeasurably inferior to Tolstoy; at this, a single pained gasp
of incredulity breaks out somewhat to the right
of the podium, and I turn my head to see a woman with long brown hair, somewhere in her middle thirties,
seated in the
third or fourth
row, shaking her head in wide - eyed astonishment at my loutish stupidity.
Unlike the Discovery Sport's
third row seating, which is best suited for members
of the Lollipop Guild, the big boy Discovery's tertiary perch is capacious enough for a 95th percentile adult, a fact that
seems plausible because my 5 foot, 11 - inch frame fit comfortably in the back
of the bus, with sufficient leg and headroom to enable claustrophobia - free sitting.