John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"I don't take favors from any man," snapped the P.-G.; but the proposal was clearly not unwelcome to him, for he added with a growl: "Besides, Ira's gone kerflooey, from what I hear; he'd probably turn me down. Not that I'd go begging, mind!"

I assured him that if Bray's report about the P.P.F. was true, then Ira had repudiated my former advice, as I'd latterly advised him to, and could be depended upon to reinstate him.

"I wouldn't take his word for it, sir," the receptionist said.

"I think you can depend on your grandson this time," Bray interposed with a level click. I could not but be comforted by his support, not alone for the sake of my grandfather, whom I'd long since forgiven his attempted nepocide and wished only well, but also because, as Bray's subsequent speech indicated, he had apparently more confidence in me than I'd had for the last quarter-hour in myself.

"Grandson my foot," the P.-G. said. "No bearded Beist is any grandson of mine. If he is, I disown him."

"A-plus," Mother said in her unhappy ignorance.

Bray raised both arms, spreading his cloak impressively, and addressed the company. "Now hear this," he demanded; "George Giles, alias the Ag-Hill Goat-Boy, alias Billy Bocksfuss, was released from Main Detention early this morning at my request. I believe he is the true, authentic GILES." A great commotion greeted this pronouncement: reporters dashed for telephones; Grandfather and his former receptionist frowned and gasped, respectively; Mother wept and kissed the hem of Bray's cloak. I remained suspicious, but my heart stirred.

"However," Bray continued, "he may or may not be a Grand Tutor." The reporters halted in their tracks; everyone seemed reassured, even myself, by the possibility that I might yet be false. "Now hear this, classmates and Tutees: you did right to lynch him last spring, but I did right also to stop the lynching, and grant him now a probationary pardon. This is his opportunity to redeem his former failings, complete his Assignment correctly, and thus verify the Answer he claims to have discovered. Very soon he and I will go as before into WESCAC's Belly, but unmasked this time, and we shall see who emerges unEATen. Perhaps we both shall; perhaps neither. Or perhaps George Giles is the true Grand Tutor, and Yours Truly is false…"

He waved down a chorus of No's; clearly his popularity was undiminished outside the small circle of my acquaintances. Mother remained kneeling before him as if he were still praising me. The former receptionist bitterly, but not disrespectfully, objected that my second day on Great Mall, from all reports, was proving at least as disastrous as the first. Look what I'd done to the Founder's Scroll…

"His Assignment was to re-place it," Bray said calmly. "But what is the origin of the Founder's Scroll? Not the Founder, Who surely inspired it, but the minds and hearts of His protégés — which is to say, of studentdom! If a Grand Tutor eats His words, is He not feeding Himself Himself?"

The woman was quieted, if not satisfied. Grandfather scowled at me uncertainly. I myself attended Bray's apology with interest, for though I could not remember that it was he who'd ordered the EAT-whistle sounded and stopped the lynching, and though I was aware of his ulterior motive in freeing me, and though I had no intention of submitting to WESCAC's examination as before, his defense of my sixth Assignment-task was ingenious and straightforwardly offered. Moreover, the phrase "eating my words" suggested yet another interpretation, whether meant by him or not: what else had my day's work consisted of?

"Consider too," Bray enjoined them, "that the Scroll was torn to pieces by the CACAFILE in its efforts to file it at once in many different categories, as I believe George Giles instructed it to do last spring. But he now denies the reality of all such categories; of all categories. According to his present teaching, the distinction between one book and another, and between books and non-books, is illusory, inasmuch as the Founder is One, and the Founder is All! Possibly his destruction and partial consumption of the Founder's Scroll is meant to demonstrate that teaching. Possibly not."

I was much impressed with this analysis, and with Bray's surprising grasp of my position, derived as it must have been from sketchy reports and observations of my long day's labor. The others appeared less convinced, but respectful of Bray's magnanimity and explicatory prowess. I regarded him closely for signs of guile, and found none.

"Understand," he concluded, "I don't say that this is the case, or that George Giles's teaching is my teaching…" There were murmurs of agreement. "But is it for students to correct and discipline their masters? And until we have gone through the Belly unmasked, who dares say which is the student and which the master?" His expression seemed to grow sad, and his next words much moved me: the fact was, he declared, studentdom inevitably did judge its Tutors, and being less than Tutors, inevitably judged wrong, for which reason it was written in the Founder's Scroll: A proph-prof is never cum laude in his own quad. That this was so was the failing of studentdom; yet there was no help for it; it was the nature of the student condition that one was obliged to honor one's Tutors as true or condemn them as false, and yet such a judgment could not be made truly except by a true Grand Tutor. Had he said that studentdom necessarily judged wrong? The truth was, they might honor the true and condemn the false as easily as the reverse, but in either case they judged ignorantly. Yet did he say "as easily"? Nay, not as easily, for the false more often pleased than the true; wherefore it followed that the true Grand Tutor was almost invariably condemned as false, and the false celebrated as true — but not always.

"Assemble at the Belly-exit," he exhorted them. "In a little while I will pass judgment on George Giles, and he on me, and WESCAC on us both. And for all mere studentdom can know, one of us may judge falsely, or mistakenly; or both of us may; or neither. For a false Grand Tutor is no wiser than his Tutees, and may in his ignorance sincerely believe himself to be what he is not — or flunkèdly pretend to be. And even WESCAC may be wrong! What is WESCAC, that it should be exempt from error? Why might it not protect and affirm the GILES — truly, falsely, or mistakenly — or confuse a false GILES with the true, or choose by confusion, preference, or error a GILES who is not a Grand Tutor over a Grand Tutor who is not the GILES, or make any other of the varieties of wrong judgments you can imagine, or no judgment at all? Go to the Belly door and wait! See who emerges; hear what he says — then believe and do as you will. Very possibly you will be mistaken, wherefore it is written in the Founder's Scroll: Many take the Finals, but few Commence. Dear, dear classmates: the flunkèd must always outnumber the passed! A-plus."

"A-plus!" many of his auditors responded, and though Bray's elucidation of their plight perhaps dismayed them, they obediently dispersed, the journalists excepted, who lingered to see what might happen next. Bray raised my mother from her knees, listening politely, even with interest, to her prattle of the passèd grandchild she believed to be in Anastasia's womb.

"Yes," he went so far as to tell her: "That will come to pass, lady. Without fail." He then commended her to the keeping of her father, whom he also welcomed back to Great Mall, saying that the chancellory might well require his good offices in the terms ahead, in view of Lucius Rexford's abdication of responsibility.

"Beardless youth," Grandfather muttered, not altogether consistently. "Founder knows what they're coming to; it's coddle, coddle. If you want a thing done right, you've got to do it yourself."