John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Maurice has never done anything like it before!" she said. "Coming right to the Infirmary and taking me out to eat! He'd even shaved, and bought a necktie!" Moreover — what I agreed was unimaginable — he had treated her with courtesy; had opened doors for her, praised her coiffure (as she reported this she touched her hair, still incredulous), dined with her in almost gentlemanly fashion, and finally announced that he wanted her advice: Didn't she agree that he should drop in at the Light House and publicly deny kinship with Lucky Rexford?

"I swear that's what he said, George — and so mildly!" Any moment, she declared, she had expected him to end the cruel pretense and become his normal self again. Had he but smashed even a little porcelain, called out a few obscenities, or pinched the waitress's behind, she might have dined with some small appetite despite the novelty of the occasion. As it was, she could eat nothing, and trembled with worry that she had displeased him in some way. His question she could scarcely comprehend; not until they rose from table did she venture to say, "Whatever you think, dear" — and that only to terminate the suspense, for she was certain that as soon as she took the bait of his polite inquiry he'd perpetrate some characteristic outrage in the tea-room. He had been drawing out her chair as she replied, and when he took her elbows then she'd closed her eyes and waited, almost with relief, to be assaulted upon the table or otherwise indignified — but he had gently ushered her out, expressing his pleasure in her company and his hope that they might have lunch together more often.

"Did he go to the Chancellor's Mansion then?" I asked.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples. "I was so rattled, I can't remember what he said after that." Seeing my sharp interest, she asked whether I knew what might have "come over" her husband.

"I have an idea," I admitted. "He and I had a little conversation this morning…" I considered whether to tell her that Maurice Stoker's apparent good behavior, if it was the result of our talk in Main Detention, was more flunkèd in its way than his former immoderacies; but I wasn't certain I could rehearse that difficult argument clearly, and so I simply cautioned her instead not to be seduced, by his new gentleness, out of her new chastity.

She frowned. "But suppose he… wants me for something, George? Or asks me to… do something for somebody? I am his wife…"

Upon consideration I agreed that she might permit him a limited amount of dignified sexual converse with her person, so long as it was with her express consent and involved no force, degradation, perversion, or other abuse. "But not with anyone else, Anastasia," I repeated firmly. "And not just to please him. If you're in heat, or want to breed a child, then okay."

"I don't seem able to have children," she reminded me. "I guess it's lucky, considering." But the thought — of either her barrenness or her past promiscuity — so saddened her that for the rest of the ride she fiddled with a strand of her hair and contemplated the evening traffic. The lights along the boulevards were less bright than they'd been the night before; they appeared at times even to flicker. As we passed the Light House I saw people gathered along the iron fence, some bearing placards whose messages I couldn't make out in the poor light. A black wedge of motorcycles roared from one of the entrance-drives and sped by us; I was almost certain that the leader was Stoker himself — but bare-chinned, and wearing a light-colored suit! Anastasia happened to be staring glumly in the opposite direction, and I said nothing lest at sight of him she change her mind about going with me.

On the esplanade before Tower Hall was another crowd, standing about as if in expectation; one could hear a common buzz of displeasure every time the streetlights winked.

"Something screwy going on," our driver ventured. He took us around to the rear of the building; Anastasia put by her melancholy reverie to pay our fare (which I'd not understood was required) and brightened a little as we approached the enormous wing that housed New Tammany's Central Library stacks and offices.

"I can hardly wait for you to meet Mom after all these terms!" she said, taking my arm. We went through an entrance-door over which was engraved THE TRUE UNIVERSITY IS A COLLECTION OF BOOKS, and made our way through vast high-ceilinged reading rooms, sparsely peopled by reason of the uncertain light.

"I know something's wrong at the Powerhouse," Anastasia fretted. A lone student rushed past us in the corridor which led to the Cataloguing Office; as we looked behind to see where he might be going in such haste, he caught himself up for a second and glanced back at me with an expression of indignant disbelief, as if angry at having to credit his eyes. I blushed, not knowing why I should, and gave Anastasia's hand a brotherly pat.

At the end of the corridor was a large domed room entirely given over to rows of catalogue-files laid out like the spokes of a wheel. In its hub, beneath a suspended sign which declared THE FINAL SCIENCE IS LIBRARY SCIENCE, a large metal-cornered glass case stood empty but for its black-velvet bed. Anastasia gasped. "It is gone!"

She meant the Scroll, ordinarily exhibited there. I twinged with distress: if it had been lost or stolen, to restore it to its place could take Founder knew how long! I insisted we learn what happened to it before pursuing our private business — which might have to be put aside anyhow if duty called.

"Maybe that's what the excitement's about," I suggested unhappily.

There being however no one in the room except ourselves, Anastasia pointed out that her mother was in the best position to answer this question as well as the other, since her office was adjacent to the card-files; she proposed we go to her at once, before she too should join the apparent exodus from Tower Hall; Anastasia would introduce me merely as the new Candidate for Grand-Tutorhood, and I could interview our mother undistracted on the matter of the Scroll before we disclosed our other concerns. I saw no alternative and so agreed, though with some misgivings; the gossip one had heard about Virginia Hector's unhappy condition inspired no confidence in her as an accurate reporter.

"Wait." I caught her arm. "Here comes someone else." A door from the corridor had opened and shut, and sharp heels clicked down the aisle next to ours. The lights blinked out entirely for two seconds; in the pause one heard a surge from the crowd outside. The clicking hesitated also, then resumed with the light. But I laid a finger to my lips and drew Anastasia two steps back into our aisle, because while the sound bespoke a woman's tread, it called to my mind the clickish voice of Harold Bray, and I wanted a moment to consider a half-formed notion that accompanied his hateful image: the texts of his false Certificates were cited by their bearers as coming not simply from the Old or New Syllabus, but specifically from the Founder's Scroll; assuredly there were transcriptions of the document which he might have consulted, but my antipathy put nothing past him. If one began with the assumption that he was a fraud and then looked for the motive of his imposture, it seemed far from unimaginable to me that he might make use of his position to deliver secret information to the Nikolayans, for example, or to steal a priceless treasure like the Founder's Scroll…

The interloper — in fact a female person of a certain age — emerged now into the center; Anastasia left off regarding me quizzically and smiled.

"Come on: it's Mom."

She would have hailed or gone to her, but when the elder woman paused beside the case at sound of us and peered to see who we were, adjusting a pencil in her silver hair, light flashed from the point-cornered lenses of her eyeglasses. I gripped Anastasia's arm and very nearly swooned.