John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Ridiculous." He had been looking a rattled and somewhat fatuous old man; now his jaw set, and his eyes flashed in a way that must once have intimidated ranks of junior officers. In fact, the two aides withdrew at once. He was a military-scientist, he told me then curtly, not a fancy-talk politician or a philosopher with thick eyeglasses, and there were plenty of things over his head, he did not doubt: but be flunked if he didn't know a racket when he smelled one, and in his nose, so to speak, this Grand-Tutor business stank from Belly to Belfrey. What was my angle? he wanted to know. He'd gone along with Rexford and the others in recognizing my Grand-Tutorhood (which was to say, Bray's) for the same reason he'd joined the Enochist Fraternity during his campaign for the Chancellorship; because he knew it was as important for "the common herd" to believe in Commencement as it was for riot-troopers to believe in their alma mater, true or false — a consolation for and justification of their inferior rank. And he'd hoped I was merely a clever opportunist; in fact he'd rather admired my "get up and git," as he put it, and assumed I'd got what I was after: fame, influence, campus-wide respect, and a lucrative berth in the Rexford administration. But apparently I was after bigger, more dangerous game; had gone digging into great men's pasts in search of paydirt, as it were, and turning up that libelous old gossip about his daughter and the GILES, had thought to extort something from him with it…

"So lay it on the line, Dunce flunk you, or I'll break you in two!"

Despite the menace of his words and tone I saw he was alarmed — he was, for example, asking my price instead of calling a patrolman — and so I gathered he'd got the drift of his daughter's and granddaughter's recent experience in the Catalogue Room. In short, he knew the GILES was alive and about — whether in Bray's person or in George the Goat-Boy's — and had every reason to fear being brought to account for his old infanticide-attempt. I might have unmasked myself then; but a strategy occurred to me for gaining more truth from him before giving any in return. I was the GILES, I repeated, by WESCAC out of Virginia R. Hector: rescued from the tapelift by G. Herrold the booksweep, reared by Max Spielman as Billy Bocksfuss the Ag-Hill Goat-Boy, and come to Great Mall to change WESCAC's AIM and Pass All or Fail All.

"No!" he protested — but in awe now more than in denial.

"Oh yes." However, I declared, he was not to suppose I sought either wealth or fame for myself or retribution for him; I had left the barn to Pass All or Fail All, and having that same day passed all my tests and the Finals, I wanted nothing from him but a true accounting of my birth and infancy before I went forth to my larger work.

He rubbed his strong chin suspiciously. "What about that George fellow, crashed the Grate this morning?"

"An impostor," I said. "A false goat-boy."

"I heard from Maurice Stoker he was out to make trouble. Founder knows he's made plenty!"

"But not for you," I pointed out. "Anyhow, I've taken care of him."

He squinted at me afresh. "You're really Virginia's son? She was saying crazy things about that George fellow…"

My heart glowed; she had acknowledged me then, at last, after the shock of my old blind assault, and of seeing me again, had led her to deny me! My gratitude for this overcame any lingering grudge against Reginald Hector; I sat beside him on the desktop and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"Mother's not well," I reminded him. "It upset her to see me again, after all these terms, and two of us claiming to be the GILES." But could he really imagine, I asked him gently, that a Grand Tutor harbored vengeance in His heart for an act that could only have been misguided?

"You're really Him?" he demanded once more. "That other fellow — I don't know; I was almost afraid…"

Speaking from my heart, not from my mask, I assured him once more that he was looking at the same Grand Tutor he'd committed to the Belly, and asked him why he'd done it. Surely one didn't murder to avoid a scandal? He shook his head and replied, glum with doubt and shame, that though "the scandal-thing" was no light matter when the reputation of leaders was at stake (since "men won't die for a fellow they don't respect"), two other considerations had led him — and me — to the fatal tapelift. The first was the strange device of my PAT-card, which he took to mean that I would pass or fail not everything, but everybody: in other words, that I'd be the Commencement or Flunkage of all studentdom, as the late Kanzler of Siegfrieder College, his adversary in C.R. II, had vowed to be. Considering Eblis Eierkopf's role in the Cum Laude Project and past affiliation with Bonifacism, he'd adjudged it an unbearable risk that his own daughter might have given birth to another Kollegiumführer. Moreover, even supposing that she had not, he could not abide the thought of his grandson's growing up as he had grown, and Ira, and to some extent Virginia also; better die ignorant than be an orphan in the University: nameless, by nameless parents got, and furtively brought to light!

"Never had a proper daddy myself, and never was one to Virginia," he admitted; "her mother dead a-bearing and mine a tramp… I did what I could to keep the same from happening to Virginia. And I don't know that I blame her, mind — but there she was: raped by a flunking Moishian, a flunking Bonifacist, or a flunking machine, one or the other, and half out of her head from it…"

"It was WESCAC," I put in, "not Max or Dr. Eierkopf. And it wasn't what you'd call a rape. You did put me in the lift, then, and push the Belly -button?"

"I did that," he acknowledged firmly. "Founder forgive me if I shouldn't have." To a professor-general in time of riot, he declared, responsibility for the death of others was no novelty. The blood of hundreds of thousands could be said to be on his hands, he supposed, if one chose to look at it that way; flunk him if I would, he'd done his duty as he saw it, was beholden to none, would take his medicine with head held high. I assured him I had no mind to flunk him, not on that account at least; his deed was wrong, but I quite understood what led him to it and did not think his motives dishonorable, only wrong-headed, like his opinions.

He began to color.

"What I mean," I said, "everybody speaks of your generosity and your brother's selfishness, and I see their point, but it is his wealth behind the Unwed Co-ed's Hospital and the P.P.F. - or was, anyhow. And behind you too, all your life…"

"Now, look here, young fellow! I beg Your doggone pardon — "

But, good officer that he was, he must have felt that Grand Tutors somehow outranked professor-generals, for when I raised my hand he fell silent. I was not condemning him or calling him a hypocrite, I explained, and would as leave save the matter for another conversation — but valid as was Enos Enoch's dictum that students Commence or fail individually, never by classes, and admirable as was the virtue of self-reliance, I could not see that Reginald Hector exemplified either very well. How could he regard himself as beholden to none, when his brother had made possible his whole career, his famous philanthropy, even his marriage? Very possibly he had been a good professor-general and chancellor; very possibly his liberality was authentic — but those talents and virtues were empty abstractions without Ira Hector's wherewithal and influence. "You Certified me Yourself!" he said angrily.

I smiled. "But that was before you'd Certified me, so it isn't quite valid." If he really wished to show his self-reliance, I suggested — now that he was out of a job anyway — why did he not chuck all sinecures and go to the goats, as Max had done? I was speaking half in jest (and half seriously, for G. Herrold's death, Max's arrest, and my departure left the goats much in need of herding), but the ex-Chancellor clearly believed I was baiting him, and looking ready to strike me. His Tutoring, I decided, must wait, since the crowd outside would not. I reassured him that I had no intent to denounce him publicly or otherwise reveal either his old attempt on my life or his various dependencies on Ira Hector. The one I forgave, the other was his affair. Neither did I want anything from him, except possibly the answer to a final question…