John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"I can't think what to do," Lady Creamhair said. Still wincing and with one hand at her throat, she set off toward the Road. "You don't know !"

I loped after. "I'm going too."

"No!" She shook her head and trudged faster, weaving like a dreamer. What was her grievance? I saw no farther than the hard-sheathed flankers of her good gate. There was fancy's pasture, there the lick and crib of yearning; nothing mattered but to find again that threshold whence I had been thrust. I would put by all diversions and surmount whatever obstacles to drive into that deepy dark, and know the peace of Being in my soul's home-stall.

Something of this she must have sensed behind her, for at sight of the pasture-fence she commenced to run. Never mind her wail, I was as far past mercy as she was past a young doe's speed. I sprang to bring her down; my hand closed on her collar, on the silver lanyard of her watch. She spun about, and with a cry flung the picnic-basket into my face.

" That's what you'll have from me!"

The blow frightened me; I fell off-balance, not to tread on the fruits and forks that strewed into my path, and Lady Creamhair availed herself of my confusion to escape. Too late I leaped to the fence; she had tumbled over. She scrambled onto the Road (her breath came hunh! hunh! ), and seeing I dared not cross the fence, returned for her bicycle. Her face was red; her cream hair mussed; her lap was hooked full of wild seed.

I began to understand that she would not come again, yet out of all despair I hit on nothing to ask but "Can't you tell me now who you are?"

The query was so plaintive it brought tears to my own eyes. But hers grew wilder; as she dragged the bicycle to the Road she said, "You should not have been born. There's no hope…"

Her last words to me. She ran beside her bike some yards before mounting and then clumsily struck off westwards, towards the halls of New Tammany. I considered sprinting abreast of her, at least, down along the fence; I even considered daring the Road — what matter if I die straightway? But I only clung distraught to a locust post and watched her go.

Something flashed like a signal in the weeds just under the fence, where she had fallen. It was her watch, dangling off a thistle. By its lanyard, which trailed into the pasture, I fetched it in from human-land; quiet as her heartbeat it ticked in my ear. My own breath now came hunh! hunh! — — not without the certain whine that had inflected hers. For a time I squatted in the brush to consider how I trembled and what to do. No hope? One gate indeed was closed — say rather, ah, it never had been open to me, any more than to Brickett Ranunculus. Yet a second remained; the day was but half done; I was only where I'd always been, and what: a goat, a goat.

I knotted the silver cord where it had parted, hung Lady Creamhair's timepiece round my neck, and left the grove. My muscles in the sun, no more a kid's, felt weary with power; their stretch was good. More, my balls had a bucky swing, not theretofore remarked, which brought me as I walked first to interest, then to delight, at last to a serious exulting. There was the pasture, there the barn; I looked with new eyes and was shivered… not now by despair!

Redfearn's Tom saluted from his pen. Instead of calling his name I answered with a trumpety bleat that set him prancing. A hurt came to my throat. Nobler-than-human friend! Love proof against abuse; uninjurable love! With a snort I galloped to his gate and let myself in. Embraces be flunkèd, that humans greet with: Tom charged me right off, as he had used to do in the play-pound, and crashed rapturously into the gate when I sprang aside. A quarter-hour we romped, utterly happy. We were both far stronger than we'd been as kids, if less nimble. I locked arms through his splendid rack — which how I envied! — and wrenched him to the ground; he feinted me off-balance and whacked my wind out with the side of his head. We dodged and butted, we were mad with energy; the sight of our sport moved Brickett Ranunculus (just then the only other buck in the herd) to thud about his own pen like a two-year-old. And anon the does, lazing in the pound adjacent, were excited by our noise. Dainty Hedda I saw to be especially roused, whose first servicing was due within the month: she pushed to the forefront of the ladies crowded about our pen; her white curls pressed through the gate-mesh; she begged to come in.

Hereat our play changed character. The does' emotion, their candid pleas for love, set Tom wild. He pawed at the screen they thrust their flanks against, and charged me now in earnest. Indeed he no longer knew me, but as a rival — and I rejoiced. His lust was general: any nan would serve; he'd have humped even me had he knocked me down. My own, though — which reboiled hot as it had ever in the hemlocks — was for Hedda! How had I not understood? The evening past, when I'd nuzzled her fleece; that very morning, when I'd touched her — it was no aging, hard-cased freak I was meant to love, but Hedda of the Speckled Teats. Exquisite creature! And she loved me as well; that was no mystery: love rolled in her gold-brown eyes and quivered in her bleat.

Redfearn's Tom stood rampant at the gate. I seized him round his sturdy girth and flung him down; leaped astride him, heedless of his hooves, and rode him to earth. His head I braced against my chest, stayed clear of his legs, and laughed at the dust he flailed up. Behind, in the din of nannies, clearly I heard the voice of my sweetheart, shrill with passion. Good Tom, stout Tom — I was his better! I glowed there where we lay, apant in the sweat of proof; from all the University of wishes, I could have asked to complete my joy only that Max be present to share it.

The time was come to claim my prize. Redfearn's Tom, set free with a pat on the crupper, scrambled up, twice shook his fleece, and bounded to the rear of the pen to compose himself. I had perhaps used him too hard in a contest which, between bucks, was after all more ceremonial than sincere. No matter: I meant to be generous in victory. This once let Max's breeding-schedule be forgot: I would admit some sprightly doe into the pen for Tom (say, golden Patricia) while out in the pound I crowned my triumph and sealed my choice.

How did she bleat for me! Her head tossed as I approached. Patricia, no less afire, stood with her; it was a matter simply of admitting the one and slipping out before the others could crowd after. I climbed erect to undo the latch, speaking all the while of love to my sweet Saanen, and braced the gate just ajar so that I might reach round and collar Patricia. Too late I heard the rush of hooves behind me: Redfearn's Tom full gallop smote my thigh like a rolling boulder and drove me, half-turned, against the gatepost. I felt a shock from hip to sole, then another, more terrific, when he crotched me with the flat of his horn. Unable even to shout I fell to my knees. He backed off for a second charge, but the nannies rushed the gate now and pitched me to ground at his feet. In and over me they swarmed; in terror I dragged clear, though every movement stung, not to suffer trampling. Near at hand lay a white-ash crook; I snatched it up against the next assault. But when I rolled over to defend myself, already sick and cold with sweat, I beheld a frightfuller prospect than attack: the does pressed at Redfearn's Tommy from every side; those on the outskirts clambered up their sisters' backs to get nearer. Even Mary Appenzeller (whom I'd envisioned a proud witness of my marriage) had no eyes for me; she whimpered her old heat like the others and thrust against Patricia for a point of vantage. Oh and before ever I managed to raise myself up, my ears had told me the worst: Hedda's voice alone was still! There in the center she stood, my darling: Redfearn's Tom was mounted on her; he tossed his mighty poll this way and that, hunkered to thrust, and with a shriek of joy bucked home.