John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"And your mom, too, pass her mind," he added; "ain't her fault she's touched in the head. A fellow's got a duty to his mom." But at Anastasia he curled his lip. "They can have the likes of you, for all I care. Serve you right!"

Too alarmed by the news to heed his insult, Anastasia rushed into the Reception Room to see that Mother was safe, and then began hastily redonning her white uniform. "Those poor patients!" she exclaimed. "Maybe I can tranquilize some of them."

Indeed the situation seemed perilous. Mad bangs and screams came from the hallway; a chap, white-gowned, galloped sideways into the office, scratching under his ribs, and made hooting water on the wall-to-wall carpet.

"Oh, yes, well," my mother murmured. He sprang at her even as I at him, but changed course at sight of me and leaped through the window instead, smashing first the pane and presently himself, as the office was many stories high. Mother resumed her knitting. Other unfortunates thrashed about in the vicinity of the doorway.

"Lock the door," I bade Greene. He stiffened.

" 'Scuse me, George, sir. No disrespect intended, but I can't go against the Chancellor of my native college, true or false. My only regret, alma-materwise, is that I don't have but one life to give for — "

"Let's get out, then," I said, for pleased as I was at Rexford's following my advice, I recalled Leonid's fiasco in the Nikolayan Zoo and feared for our safety. My Ladyship protested that her first responsibility was to the patients, and Greene that the likes of her were disgraces to their uniforms, say what one would. I bade the former to keep in mind that everyone's first responsibility was to the Founder — which was to say, to one's own passage, not always to be attained by charitable works — and declared to the latter my wish that he escort Mrs. Stoker not only out of the Infirmary but all the way to the Powerhouse.

"No!" Anastasia objected. "If everything's going to pieces, then I don't care about my Assignment! I'm going with You." And Greene muttered that I should not ought to take him from Miss Sally Ann's bedside for the sake of no floozy.

"It's for Miss Sally Ann's sake you have to," I said; "for the sake of all the patients. I want this floozy out in the Powerhouse where she belongs, so she won't take advantage of helpless people. Do you think you'll be okay with her?"

Anastasia saw my motive and protested.

"I'll be okay," Greene said, and wiped his palms grimly on his trouser-thighs.

"No, please, George…" said Anastasia.

"She may try to seduce you," I warned him, for her benefit. "She's awfully aggressive. Not like her sister."

" George …"

With a fierce squint Greene took her arm. "You come along with me. Don't try to flooze me none, neither."

More gently I took my mother's elbow; clucking and smiling, she bagged her yarn and obediently rose.

"At least give me a minute to fix my hair!" Anastasia said. Her tone had changed, was newly resolute and guileful, as was her face. I surmised, not without mixed feelings, that what had been at odds — her wish to assert herself as I'd advised and her wish to go to Tower Hall with me instead of to her home with Greene — were now in league: she would attempt to bribe Greene with her favors. And though I myself had urged such initiative upon her, the twinge I felt was not owing entirely to the danger of her succeeding and thus following me into the Belly. To assure myself that I was not jealous , or envious of Greene, I smiled and winked at her, as if to say, "I see right through you, and wish you luck."

She saw and understood me, I'm sure, but regarded me coolly.

"Watch out for the nuts," Greene advised me.

Anastasia patted her hair, and slipped her arm primly under his. "He hasn't any. I'm glad I've got a man to take home."

Greene blushed, no less than I, who was shocked by her unwonted coarseness as well as stung by the insult. Certainly it was but part of her strategy! Yet when I pretended to suppress a grin, she turned from me coldly and whispered something in Greene's ear that did nothing to lighten his color. As I bade them goodbye I found myself reminding her, against my better judgment, that if things turned out badly in the Belly she might not be seeing me again.

"You don't say," she said. "Bye-bye, then. Oh, Peter, would you fasten me in back? I can't reach the hooks." She turned her lovely nape to him.

"Hmp," Greene said.

"And I've mislaid my darned purse in the Treatment Room somewhere! Would you help me find it?"

Full of confusion I ushered Mother from the office; and the womanly chuckle I heard behind me, and Greene's half-hearted complaint, as he shut the hall door, that he wasn't supposed to shut any doors, it was against orders, smote me with an ireful doubt which — small comfort! — abetted our safe exit. For the first madman who loped up, unfortunately woofing, I butted with such force that he knocked a second down, and our way was clear to the lift. And in the lobby, where demented undergraduates and faculty of both sexes swung from light-fixtures, raced in wheelchairs, coupled on the carpet, shat in typewriters, or merely stood transfixed in curious attitudes, I laid about ruthlessly with my stick, cut an angry swath, and roughly gimped through bedlam with my mother. I could not have explained my fury, or told why, when it occurred to me that Love and Hate must be in truth distinctions as false as True and False, that sagacious reflection nowise clarified my mind or calmed my spirit.

I hailed the only taxi at the Annex door and bade the driver take us to Tower Hall. Newsboys hawked in the fading afternoon: Power Lines Moving Together: Fear Riot Near; Rexford Raps Mrs., Raises Roof. The tidings brought me no pleasure. Through a small loudspeaker in our sidecar came further news: so-called "Moderate" elements were resigning from the Administration to protest the Chancellor's recognition of extremists; Ira Hector for example had been offered the post of Comptroller, and Rexford had not only acknowledged Maurice Stoker as his half-brother, but gone to spend the weekend with him at the Power Plant. " 'It may be necessary to have these people around,' complained one resigning official, 'like spies and grafters — - but one mustn't officially approve of them…' " The new corrective headgear issued to Power-Line guards, the reporter went on to say, was intended to remedy the faults of the "heads-up" collar by fixing the wearer's eyes down at his feet; but looking down from that height seemed to make the guards dizzy, and the drop-off rate was as high as before.

"What the heck anyhow," I said, snapping off the speaker: "Failure is Passage."

"A-plus," said Mother.

Not until we drew in sight of the Library did I realize that I had no means to pay our fare. I glanced at the driver, hoping to gauge his charitableness, and saw what I'd been too disconcerted to observe before, why he was the only cabbie in the madhouse drive. His uniform was white, beltless and buttonless, his eyes were aglint, his grin was euphrasic. Alarmed, I commanded him to stop the motorcycle.

"Stop the cycle," he squawked like a parrot. "Stop the cycle." His grip on the handlebar was fixed now as his expression; the Mall-street fetched us straight over a curbstone, across Tower Hall Plaza, through clusters of alarmed undergraduates, and into a yew-hedge flanking the entrance, where we came to rest. The engine stalled.

"Yes, well," Mother remarked. The driver sat erect and beaming as ever, though yew-twigs pressed against his face, even into his mouth.

"Thtop the thycle," he repeated. I helped Mother out and left him to iterate his message to the gathering crowd — the sight of which, understandably, caused a small shudder in me.