John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Plausible as was his explanation (indeed, how else account for his not being EATen?), and sweet the prospect of accomplishing his fall, I was riven with doubts and perplexities. To reconceive him so abruptly, from foe into accomplice of my destiny, was beyond my managing, the more for the Stokerish air of his invitation, which seemed to me fraught with guile. Did he tempt me, then, like Stoker, in order to be refused? And if so, was it refusal that would flunk me, or refusal to refuse? The Abyss yawned under me, as in the Assembly-Before-the-Grate; I resisted it by yielding, not to the temptation to denounce him, but to an especially strong contraction of the chamber-walls, which virtually ejected me, headlong, through the port. It winked shut instantly behind, like an eye, or the drawstrung mouth of Virginia Hector's purse, slung over my shoulder. Even as I picked myself up — from a small grassplot luckily situated under the aperture — the crowd pressed to me, torches in hand, and lights from a mobile Telerama-unit flooded the scene.

"Hooray for Bray!" they seemed to be shouting. I had time for one glance behind me; he had contrived by some means to remain in the Belly. Then the vanguard was upon me, laughing and cheering; my heart quailed. But it was in victory they hoist me, stick in one hand, papers in the other, to their shoulders. Not until a microphone was thrust at me, and a reporter asked whether the Goat-Boy was indeed EATen for good and all, did I remember what face I wore. Chagrin! But I thought better than to proclaim the truth from so shaky a platform.

"All's well," I told the questioner — and was pleased to hear my voice amplified from the Telerama-vehicle. "The false Tutor's in the Belly; he'll trouble this campus no more."

There was great applause. Handfuls of confetti and streamers of toilet-tissue filled the air; klaxons and bugles sounded; undergraduate young men in ROTC uniforms seized and kissed the nearest co-eds — who willingly submitted, standing on one foot and raising the other behind them.

"Take me to your former chancellor," I exhorted them, "and wait for me outside his office. There'll be a surprise, I promise!"

What I designed, of course, was to present to ex-Chancellor Hector my ID-card, in fulfillment of the final article of my Assignment (since Mother was not herself, and among Grandfather's sinecures was the directorship of New Tammany's idle Office of Commencement); having secured his official endorsement that my Assignment was complete and my ID-card in order, I would unmask myself to him and to the student body, display my credentials, proclaim my indisputable Grand-Tutorhood, and then drive Bray from Great Mall if his expulsion seemed appropriate. The throng took up my promise with a right good will, brandished their torches exultantly now and hymned out the Varsity Anthem as they bore me forth:

Dear old New Tammany,

The University

On thee depends…

Through I approved neither the narrow alma-matriotism of that sentiment nor the general notion that the weal of studentdom was politically contingent, I could not but be moved, in those circumstances, by the fitness of their appeal, directed as it seemed not to their college but to me:

Teach us thy Answers bright;

Lead us from flunkèd Night;

Commence us to the Light

When our School-Term ends!

Reginald Hector's several offices — as Commencement Director, Executive Secretary of the Philophilosophical Fund, and Board Chairman of his brother's reference-book cartel — were housed, along with his living-quarters, in a smaller version of Lucius Rexford's Light House, just across Great Mall. As it had originally served the latter's purpose, it was now appropriately called the Old Chancellor's Mansion. Inappropriately, however, its white-brick facade and gracious windows were lit more brightly than those of its larger counterpart: either the Power-Plant trouble was localized, or Lucky Rexford had altered his ways indeed! The respect still felt by New Tammanians for their old professor-general was evidenced by the fact that whereas half a hundred guards had not kept them out of Tower Hall, the sight of one — a white-helmeted and — gloved ROTCMP — was enough to halt my bearers a respectful way from the porch. The fellow was armed, of course; yet surely it was not his rifle (held anyhow at Parade Rest) that stayed them, but their esteem for the man whose door he ceremonially protected. Much impressed at this contradiction of Max's contempt, and Dr. Sear's, for the former Chancellor, I asked to be set down, declared again into a row of microphones that important announcements would soon be forthcoming, perhaps from Reginald Hector as well as myself, and insisted that no one accompany me into the building. As I strode porchwards (gimplessly as possible) campus patrolmen assembled to contain the crowd — which I was gratified to see make no effort to push past them. A number of photographers and journalism-majors were rude enough to press after me up the walk, and though I respected their professional persistence, I was pleased when the military doorman, having inspected my ID-card and saluted me, obliged them to remain without.

"The P.-G's in the P.P.P.O., sir," he informed me; and so satisfying was his brisk courtesy I thanked him and stepped inside before considering what his message signified. Happily, another like him, only female, came forward from a desk in the reception-hall as I entered, and inquired politely whether it was the P.-G. I sought; if so, she was sure he would interrupt his P.P.F.-work for another audience with the Grand Tutor — especially in view of the shocking news, which she daresaid had brought me to the P.P.P.O. I understood then the several initials and, reminded of the general crisis by a dimming of the lights, bid her not fear the alarming reports from Founder's Hill and the Light House, since all radical progress entailed some temporary disorder.

"Oh no, sir," she said — a pert thing she, in her olive skirt and blouse and her dark-rimmed spectacles — "I meant what that Ira Hector's gone and done." She'd led me down a short hall to a glass-paned double door labeled PHILOSOPHICAL FUND: EXECUTIVE SECRETARY. "None of my business, I'm sure," she declared, opening the door with a fetching thrust of her hip, "but I still think Ira Hector's a nasty old man and the P-G.'s a sweetie. I'll tell him you're here."

Curious as I was to know what news she alluded to, I was more so at the sight, in the P.P.F. Office, of what appeared to be the same shaggy band of indigent scholars I'd rescued Ira Hector from in the morning. Beggars now as then, and no less disdainful, they seemed however to be meeting with more success. The man they importuned, pressing round the desktop where he sat, I gathered was Reginald Hector, my maternal grandfather and would-be assassin. A strong-jawed, hairless man in conservative worsted, he dispensed largesse with an even hand and a steady smile. Though his perch was informal, his back was as straight as the guard's outside; his eyes, blue, seemed now to twinkle, now to glint like mica; at each beneficence he said, "Take this!" or, "There, by golly!" in a tone of level satisfaction, as if delivering a counter-thrust. To one man he gave a check, to another a set of drafting-instruments boxed in blue velvet, to another a reference-book bound in half-morocco, to another three tins of corned beef; his own fountain-pen he took from his inside pocket and bestowed upon a long-haired woolly girl, who kissed his hand; his pocket-watch and chain, his desk-barometer and appointment-calendar, even his striped cravat and cufflinks went the same charitable way. And though two aides behind him replaced these items, including the personal ones, from a stock in cartons at their side, I was pleased by the spectacle of such philanthropy, stirred by the contrast between the brothers Hector, and not a little incensed at the students' want of gratitude; even the hand-kisser I suspected of a smirk, which happily her hair hid from her benefactor.