John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Da! Da!" the Nikolayan cried happily. "Even other Grand Tutor — I don't believe, I don't like either! — he says too!"

Very well, then, I said (concealing my chagrin), it was agreed on both sides of the Power Line that selfishness was reprehensible. But Leonid's behavior seemed to me selfish — in the sense of vanity more than of avarice — both in its intention and its motive. Recalling some of Max's observations on the subject, I declared that if to be a perfect Student-Unionist meant to efface one's personal self and identify absolutely with the "student self" or the "self of the college," then to wish to be a perfect Student-Unionist, or even a great Nikolayan, must "flunk" the wisher in the eyes of Classmate X, for example. Leonid's dilemma was thus not unlike mine, or any right-thinking undergraduate's, and I spoke of it therefore with compassion: the wish to achieve perfect self-suppression, like the yen to Graduate, was finally a prideful wish and thus self-defeating; to achieve it, not only the self must be suppressed, but the selfish wish itself. Aspiration, it seemed to me, by the logic of Studeflt-Unionism, was permissible only in the College Self…

"I like you, Goat-Boy!" Leonid shouted — fortunately, for others in the room were not pleased by my words and chiding tone, and would have terminated our conversation if Leonid hadn't embraced me and insisted I continue.

"Well," I said, "you won't agree, I suppose, but my former keeper, Dr. Spielman, used to say that what the Student-Unionists do is transfer their normal selfishness onto the College Self, which then becomes more selfish than an Informationalist college, even though the people in it may be less selfish individually…"

Whether he understood my position, to say nothing of agreeing with it, seemed doubtful; he colored at the mention of Max's name and released me in order to pace again about the room. But I gimped beside him (most of the others were huddled in conferences against the arrival of Classmate X) and insisted he agree that the competition for supremacy between East and West Campuses was essentially a selfish competition, in which New Tammany and Nikolay Colleges each were guilty of seeking advantage over the other in every sphere and extending their hegemonies in the name of self-defense. Why else would the Nikolayans want the computer-scientist whom he had planned to abduct, or the New Tammanians not want to lose him? The colleges were all Ira Hectors…

"Goat-Boy, Goat-Boy!" Leonid groaned — in what spirit I could not quite tell.

A little dismayed, I said, "I guess it's a real problem to be a good Student-Unionist, isn't it?" and from the doorway a voice like polished steel replied, "Not at all. A proper Student-Unionist can have no problems. Only the College may have problems."

The newcomer I guessed at once to be Classmate X: as slight and pinched a man as Ira Hector, though less determinate of age, he had too Ira's cold bright eyes, which glinted however more of metal than of gems. He wore an ill-cut suit of coarse material, was hairless, had much metal in his teeth, and spoke almost tonelessly. Two words he said to Leonid, in their tongue, and his stepson sprang to him. They regarded each other, Leonid clasping and unclasping his hands, Classmate X without gesture or expression. Then the older man asked a New Tammany official to explain why Classmate Alexandrov was being detained, and having listened impassively to the reply, and to his son's tape-recorded confession, he asked Leonid (according to our interpreters) to affirm or deny the charge of intent to kidnap. Leonid affirmed it, adding ardently that his motive had been to atone for the errors of his past, and declaring that he would find a way yet to make himself worthy of membership in the Student Union and of his father's respect.

Classmate X gave the slightest shrug of the shoulders. "The fool is yours," he said to the chief of the New Tammany officials, and turned on his heel. Leonid leaped after him, wet-eyed, then stopped and flung himself into a chair. Two Nikolayans left the room with their superior, and after a second's consideration I followed them into the corridor.

"Mr. X?" I called. "Mr. Classmate X, sir!" He stopped and precisely turned his leathern skull. His associates glared, even counseled him (so I gathered from their expressions) to ignore me; but he shook his head, as slightly as he had shrugged earlier, and permitted me to overtake them.

"Dr. Spielman's protégé ," he murmured with the faintest of smiles. "No use trying to Graduate us, Classmate Goat-Boy: until everyone can pass, we won't believe in Passage. Too bad your Dr. Spielman's turned mid-percentile — he used to have more sense."

His accent, I noticed, was very slight, and closer to Max's, for example, than to any Nikolayan's I had heard. I asked whether he knew my former keeper personally, promising to pass along his regards when next I visited his cell.

"No use in that," he said quickly. "One knows Dr. Spielman by reputation, of course. Let's speak no more of him." And so we moved on down the corridor towards a reception-room where he was to confer informally with Chancellor Rexford prior to the opening of the Summit Symposium (at which, his college being currently administered by a committee instead of one man, he was temporarily empowered to deal on equal footing with the NTC Chancellor); but he returned at once to the forbidden subject, expressing his skepticism that Max had really murdered Herman Hermann and his disapproval of the deed. That Bonifacists should be exterminated he quite agreed, but not in so laissez-faire a manner, at the whim of amateur individuals; programs of liquidation, like programs of "charity," were best left to ad hoc committees of experts like those which eliminated the counterrevolutionary elements in Nikolay College and directed the supply of food and "educational material" to certain famine-ridden Frumentian campuses some terms past — in both which operations, as he put it, "some of us participated." Otherwise, private feelings of hatred or compassion were liable at least to supplant the suprapersonal spirit in which the ends of collegiate policy ought properly to be served, if they did not actually interfere with the attainment of those ends.

I was ready to assure him from habit that Max couldn't possibly be guilty of the murder, but checked myself with the painful memory that he had confessed to the contrary, and affirmed to me his confession. So instead, with an aching throat, I briefly rehearsed my objections to the Student-Unionist doctrines of self-suppression and the insignificance of the individual student, and he heard me out impassively.

"I'm not speaking as a New Tammanian or an Informationalist," I declared.

"Really."

"Honestly. I've seen how selfish life in this college is, in lots of ways; and anyhow a Grand Tutor doesn't take sides in varsity politics."

"Ah."

But Commencement, I insisted, was always of the individual student, never of studentdom as such — a mere abstraction, in my opinion — and so while I condemned selfishness as heartily as he, it seemed to me that its passing opposite was not the unnatural and unfeeling selflessness of the dedicated Student-Unionist, but the warm unselfishness apparent in men like Leonid Andreich Alexandrov, whom I took to be more representative of Nikolayan studentdom than was his stepfather. " I felt more sympathy for him than you did," I charged. "Even the guards who arrested him were kinder than you!"

"Students are not important," Classmate X replied crisply. "Studentdom is all that matters." The Student Union embodied the general will of studentdom, he said, and Nikolay College had been appointed by history to lead the Student Union in the implementation of that will. If Leonid Andreich, or any or all of the rest of us, happened to obstruct this implementation, we must be sacrified in its behalf. A willingness to make that sacrifice was the first condition of membership in the Union, whose will must be done; and making it the best validation of that willingness.