Chapter Six Summary

The Fall Semester starts at Waindell University in much the same way as it has started every year that Pnin has taught there. Students make the same irrelevant and uninsightful marginalia, pranksters vandalized statues in the humanities building, the butterflies, preparing for migration south, flutter around. This year however has a dark undertone, so far unknown to Pnin. His position has, for many years, not attracted a great number of students. America, in the midst of the Cold War, is not particularly interested in learning the Russian language or reading Russian literature. He does not yet have tenure and, as such, his position exists solely by virtue of being attached to the German department, headed by his friend, Professor Hagen. Hagen, however, has just accepted a new post at a university named Seabord, evidently a much more prestigious institution than Waindell...