John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Stoker grinned. "Next time don't be so wasteful."

Greene then kindly installed my batteries for me, and in the process noticed for the first time the new mirror on my stick, which so upset him that he had to excuse himself and take another seat.

"What a prize!" Stoker marveled after him. "Did I tell you he thinks Stacey's a virgin, and wants to marry her? He actually had a fight last night with a Nikolayan chap, over her honor!" He shook his head as if in awe — all his attitudes were as if, for that matter: one sensed their calculatedness and wondered uneasily what his real motives might be. "My brother has blind spots, too, but at least he's not demented."

I might have protested both his abuse of Greene and his claim to kinship with Lucius Rexford, which seemed preposterous now I'd seen the pair of them; but I was clearly being baited, and wanted moreover not to miss what the Chancellor was saying.

"So many extraordinary things have happened in the last twenty-four hours," Rexford said, reading from his notes now, "that we can scarcely begin to assimilate them as facts, much less see clearly what they imply. Yesterday, for instance, many people were complaining that only a new Grand Tutor could solve the great problems that the Free Campus faces…" He favored me with a brilliant smile. "Today, by my count, we have at least two full-fledged Grand Tutors in New Tammany, and a Candidate for a third." Many eyes turned to me, but their amusement, in the spirit of the Chancellor's, was friendly, and though it turned out he meant I was the Candidate, and Bray and The Living Sakhyan the full-fledged Tutors, I could not resent his misunderstanding.

"Frankly, I find this a happy state of affairs," he went on, "and I'm sure we can work out some cooperative arrangement with these gentlemen to everyone's benefit."

Stoker whispered loudly to me, "He could work out a cooperative arrangement between Enos Enoch and the Dean o' Flunks." People hissed at him to be quiet; apparently they regarded as out of place here the irreverence they'd been amused by before Main Gate. But Stoker only farted. Chancellor Rexford went on to express his shock and regret at the unhappy allegations against Dr. Max Spielman, whom he said he'd always regarded as the very image of gentle enlightenment; he assured us that the case would be investigated thoroughly and justice done, and entreated us not to let either liberal sympathy or conservative antipathy tempt us from dispassionate judgment of the evidence as it was brought to light. Finally he announced a new Field-Certification Program outlined by WESCAC for pre-Graduates — which was to say, virtually everyone — as an official alternative to Commencement. It was a step that the College had been reluctant to take thitherto, for while everyone agreed that few people really took the Finals any more, if indeed the Finals existed at all, yet no responsible person wanted to repudiate New Tammany's Moishio-Enochist heritage, which held Graduation to be the aim of campus life. In consequence, though everyone still had officially to aspire to Commencement, there was no agreement on what defined it; no degrees were awarded, nor in fact were any sought. From this somewhat demoralizing impasse (which I must say Rexford himself seemed not terribly distressed by) no practical egress had been found until WESCAC's affirmation of Harold Bray as an authentic Grand Tutor. Now the plan was to make de jure what had long been recognized de facto: that a Certificate of Proficiency in the Field was all a modern undergraduate need aspire to, or a modern college award. To the Enochist objection that such a policy devaluated Final Examination and true Commencement, it could now be answered that a bonafide Grand Tutor was in residence, whose function it would be to review and authenticate the status of any who presently claimed Candidacy or actual Graduateship, and to act as Examiner of all future Candidates. In addition, having apparently demonstrated already that he could enter WESCAC's Belly and return unEATen, Dr. Bray was to be given Cabinet rank in Tower Hall, with final responsibility for WESCAC's AIM — a move proposed by the computer itself.

Needless to say, I heard these things with heavy heart. To pass the Trial-by-Turnstile, even to penetrate Scrapegoat Grate — these were mere physical stunts, however difficult. But to deal with so suddenly established a pretender, to Pass All and not Fail Anything, when I had no firm notion of what Commencement was, or how to achieve it! Yet my distress became determination — stubbornness at least — under Maurice Stoker's needling.

"Your friend Bray's got the edge on you," he'd whisper, or urge, "Jump up and declare yourself, George, the way Bray did! Eat Lucky's lecture-notes — that'd shut him up." The temptation to do some such spectacular thing was strong, the more since I'd seen Bray's success. And the situation was opportune: Chancellor Rexford's address was doubtless being broadcast everywhere in New Tammany, perhaps all over West Campus, and my success at the Turnstile not only confirmed that I was no Regular Freshman but lent me a certain notoriety which might be made use of before it passed. So keenly did I wish to seize the moment, in fact, that only Stoker's urging me to do so kept me from it — and perhaps a disinclination to follow Bray's pattern. Uncanny, how the man played upon one! No sooner did I shush him than he said, "D'you really think you should sit still just because I tell you to move? That puts you completely in my hands."

"You're not the Dean o' Flunks, you know!" I told him angrily. "You may not even be flunked yet. Don't be so proud." I spoke only to spite him, and he laughed so loudly that the Chancellor had to pause in his speech; indeed, Stoker left the hall, laughing, as though at Rexford's announcement that the topics of this morning's address were Brotherhood and Practical Graduation. Yet even when I learned afterwards that this mocking exit, like his performance before the Turnstile, was part of the matriculation ritual (signifying the temporary retreat of the forces of Failure), and that it was only to withdraw at just this point that Stoker had entered the Assembly in the first place, still a redness in his scowl, something shrill in his mock, suggested to me that my words had somehow touched him.

I sat then and listened quietly, but not at all easy, to the address, wondering whether Stoker truly meant to keep me from Grand Tutorhood, and if so, whether out of private flunkèdness or as agent for some cabal, and if the latter, who my real adversaries were, and why. Yet his mocking but confirmed my resolve and thus abetted me indirectly, even as his avowed contempt for Lucky Rexford only increased the latter's popularity, and his claim to be Rexford's brother lent credence to the Chancellor's mild denial of any such relation. Remembering the advice that Dr. Sear had given me, I speculated whether just this effect was Stoker's final intention after all; and if so, was it then benevolent, or ought I to frustrate it by yielding to his temptations? A briar-patch of conjecture! I thought with sympathy of Peter Greene's aversion to mirrors, and to extricate myself repeated that I was okay.

Chancellor Rexford declared, "A favorite maxim of mine is Entelechus's remark that Graduation is a matter of degree. I take it to mean that the difference between people like you and me on the one hand and Mr. The Living Sakhyan on the other — perhaps even Enos Enoch — isn't a difference in kind." Lest the good Enochists start picketing the Chancellory, he hastened to add, it should be understood that he was speaking empirically, of things observable, not of revealed Answers. As a busy administrator of a large and powerful college dedicated to the principles of University-wide enlightenment and free research, he thought the dictum attractively combined the best aspects of both aristocratic and democratic institutions: it insisted on the real difference in people's worth — "Let's face it," he smiled; "it's better to be bright, handsome, healthy, and talented than to be stupid, ugly, sick, and incompetent" — while at the same time denying that the gifted were different in kind from their less lucky classmates.