John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Professor Marcus," he said lightly, "says that time is the enemy of West-Campus Informationalism. But given the ultimate conditions of the Quiet Riot, WESCAC versus EASCAC, this isn't necessarily so." If the future of the University was materially optimistic, he believed, then time was West Campus's friend, the more so since Eastern teaching held it not to be. "It comes to this apparently cynical thing," he asserted: "The basic ills of studentdom have been historically on the Student-Unionist side: hunger, ignorance, physical oppression, and the like. But when the basic needs of the student body are satisfied, its secondary drives are on our side, for better or worse: egoism, ambition, and the yen for comfort, as well as the desire for academic freedom and the Graduation of the individual."

I sensed a sharp interest in the room: it was that holders of elected office rarely spoke so candidly and unsentimentally on controversial matters, though I did not of course appreciate this fact at the time. But Rexford's style was to balance conservative action with daring speech: to call all spades but not to play them recklessly, and while never losing sight of the ideal, to come to terms wherever necessary with what he called "the flunkèd realities."

Now he came to what he called the endgame of his imaginary chessmatch: a surprising appraisal of what he saw as the "maximum threat" of Student-Unionism to the West Campus.

"Suppose all my other Answers are incorrect," he said. "Suppose the Quiet Riot remains quiet, but time proves to be the friend of Student-Unionism after all, and the much-heralded Decline of West Campus really comes to pass. Indeed, suppose the worst — " His voice was deadly earnest. "Suppose New Tammany College were utterly to lose the Quiet Riot, and were annexed to East Campus. What would happen?" There was strained laughter here and there in the hall, and some shouted, "No! No!" But Chancellor Rexford declared (in a lighter voice) his belief that after the initial dreadfulness of annexation — bloody proscriptions, military occupation of West Campus, a painful drop in the standard of individual student life in New Tammany, radical reorganizations of curricula and administrative machineries, and so forth — there must come gradually, over the terms, a mutual assimilation of East and West. The "free campus" was too vast to hold forever subject to an alien military-science department; a genuine All-University Administration, however repugnant its initial form, would have been achieved; the staggering military-science budget that presently bled the resources of both East and West would be no longer required. Though several generations of undergraduates would be raised on Student-Unionist ideology, the University literacy-rate would improve, as eventually would academic- and living-standards all over the campus. And as literacy, prosperity, and enlightenment advanced in a truly unified University, there could not but be, Dr. Rexford thought, a rematriculation of West-Campus values: of academic freedom, individual dignity, and the liberty of every student to labor at what he took to be his personal Assignment, in quest of his personal Graduation.

"In short," he concluded, "my view is the opposite of the tragic view. The author of Taliped Decanus believes we lose even when we win; that there are only different ways of losing. But I believe we'll win even if we lose!"

Much applause greeted this statement. Peter Greene especially seemed to share the Chancellor's optimism: he stamped his feet and whistled through his fingers.

"However," Rexford said, "since you and I wouldn't be here to enjoy that sort of victory, I'd rather win by winning. That's why I think the true pacifism isn't unilateral disarming of WESCAC's AIM, or any other sort of surrender, but military deadlock — stalemate, even. In this chess-game with our dangerous brother, only very long-range strategy will win; when you read about our setbacks in the Boundary Dispute or trouble on the Power Line, remember that pawns and even an occasional Dean or Don-Errant may have to be sacrificed to draw our opponent out of position; to overextend him, so that in the endgame we can turn what appeared to be a stalemate into a checkmate. I happen really to believe it can be done, and for that reason I'm not afraid either of the present or of the future. Thank you very much, and welcome to New Tammany!"

The close of his address was received with another cheering demonstration, which required some minutes to spend itself. When it was done an aide announced that the Chancellor, as was his custom, would answer a few questions from the floor before turning the registration-procedure over to WESCAC. The man had much impressed me, in particular that cheerful energy which saw WESCAC merely as a useful tool, and spiritedly denied that the student condition was in essence tragic — as Dr. Sear for example had held it to be. To one as subject as myself to fits of doubt, to buckwheat ecstasies and hemlock glooms; who, fed on hero-tales, conceived the Answer as a thing fetched up from Troll-lands of the spirit, Lucius Rexford's image was refreshment. Sweet to imagine a Graduation attained by sunny zest; by smiling common sense at work in bright-lit classrooms; by decent wholesome men well groomed and well intelligenced, eminently likable, with handsome wives and pretty children, whose life was unshadowed pleasure to themselves and others! While the demonstration was in progress I regarded Lucky Rexford's sapphire eyes and thought grimly of Taliped's — dark in the sockets of his mask and then bloodily extinguished. And Maurice Stoker's, black-flashing as he bellowed through the Furnace Room, fired by disorder and every flunkèd thing. Even Harold Bray's, that weirdly glinted when he flunked Dean Taliped from the stage and bid all follow him through the mystery to Commencement. Sear's mirror then gave back to me my own — brown and burning in an unwashed face, shagged by unbarbered brows, passionate with uncertainty — and moved me to a clear and complex vision: I saw that however gimped and pleasureless my way, rough my manner, crude my tuition, outlandish my behavior and appearance, profound my doubts — I was nearer Graduation than Lucky Rexford, whose lot was so brighter! I could not say what passèd meant, but in an instant I saw that neither he nor Sear nor Greene, nor Stoker, Croaker, or Eierkopf, nor even Max or Anastasia, was passed; they all were failed! Dean Taliped, in the horror of his knowledge, was passèder than they, as was I in my clear confoundment; he was as passèd as one can be who understands and accepts that in studentdom is only failure. If anything lay beyond that awful Answer; if Commencement was indeed attainable by human students; then the way led through the dark and bloody Deanery of Cadmus, there was no getting round it; not through the clean, well-windowed halls of Rexford's Chancellory. Alas for that!

"Mr. Chancellor!" I stood and rapped my stick for attention, perhaps interrupting a question in progress. People snickered, guards scowled, Lucius Rexford frowned at the irregularity of my outburst, but then accepted it with patient amusement.

"Yes?"

Lights and cameras turned my way. I had been going to declare my identity and aim, Bray's necessary fraudulence, my ignorance of the nature of Commencement but conviction that I would discover it — this and more; but there were no words; I was a fool; who was I anyhow? Tears stung me, of embarrassment and doubt, but I would not shed them or sit down, I bleated a question after all: "If it's your brother — if it's your brother you're playing against — " I saw his handsome jaw set. "Why not forget about the game and hug him? Why not let him have all the pieces, if he wants them, and then embrace?"

An unfriendly murmur rose as I spoke; I scarcely understood the question myself; I heard Max Spielman's name whispered, and the word Student-Unionist. Lucius Rexford reddened, much less than I, but replied good-naturedly.