John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"I made a short circuit," I admitted calmly, drawing strength from my half a dozen. "But I don't think WESCAC's damaged." I actually hoped not, I added for my classmates' benefit; for although it stood between Failure and Passage, WESCAC therefore partook of both, served both, and was in itself true emblem of neither. I had been wrong, I said, to think it Troll. Black cap and gown of naked Truth, it screened from the general eye what only the few, Truth's lovers and tutees, might look on bare and not be blinded.

The six took frownish notes, shaking their heads; the rest hooted me down. How to speak the unspeakable? I said no more. One forelocked aide winked at a stern professor-general, tapped his temple, and said, "Probably EATen, like the old lady."

I sighed and contented myself with a suggestion they could understand: that they unplug WESCAC's Output from its Input, to restore the normal circuit. Exchanging glances of surmise, they hurried off. I looked about then for my usual lynchers, and was surprised to see none in evidence, until I observed that the approaching motorcade was led by Stoker, and that Max was in his sidecar: the mass of studentdom had gone to Founder's Hill, I realized grimly, to watch the Shafting. It was against capital punishment, among other things, that the sheep-skinned band had assembled to demonstrate, all but the faction protesting protest. Stoker skidded up and snarled at Anastasia; his crew piled up their rowdy vehicles behind him.

"Get in here, woman! I'm taking you home!"

Demurely she refused; she would stay with me, whether I wished her to or not. She apologized for having forsaken her wifely vows and tried to explain that while she sympathized with Stoker and was even beginning in a way to love him, she had a higher obligation as a Grand Tutee; a higher love, not in conflict with her marriage, she declared, but transcending it; a passèd Assignment from the Founder, scarcely dreamed of even by myself, to the fulfillment whereof she was now utterly dedicate…

"Hogwash!" Stoker raged. All this while I'd been contemplating Max, who, wizeneder than ever, sat oblivious to the fuss. But at Stoker's oath, unfamiliar to me, I started, for it put a notion into my head, or rather disclosed to me in an instant one that had grown unnoticed there almost to ripeness. In half a second I was studying Max again (who also studied me), ignoring Stoker's jealous oaths and the general furor; but it was as if the Founder had seen to it he would cry Hogwash on that occasion rather than Horse-manure or Sheep-shit (other of his pet ejaculations), just in order to inspire me with a plan.

Max held out a thin hand. "Bye-bye, Georgie."

How to tell him that I grasped now, among much else, the hub of his Cyclology; that I had completed my Assignment, passed the Finals, and come through to bonafide Grand-Tutorship? There was no need: he saw what I'd seen and had become; from his eyes, hid deep behind their brows like an owl's in snowy brake, understanding glowed. I gripped his hand. "You don't have to die this afternoon, Max. I've got a secret: Leonid's key. I can take you right out of this." I studied his face as I spoke. He touched the amulet-of-Freddie. The true scapegoatery, I reminded him, was not to die for studentdom's sake, but to take their failings upon oneself and live. "You misunderstood the amulet-of-Freddie."

"Ach," he said, "not only that. You know why I been an all-round genius, George?" He smiled. "Because I never knew my real major. But I found out now what my life's-work is."

I asked what.

"To die," he said, delighted by the joke. "In studentdom's behalf, selfish or not, and even if it don't make sense."

"Are you a love-lover nowadays, Max?" I earnestly inquired. "Or a hate-hater, or what?"

Promptly, as if he'd expected the question, he replied: "Na, I don't hate hate any more. But I love love more than I don't hate hate."

"You're going to the Shaft?"

He nodded.

"Even though you might be playing martyr?"

He shrugged. "So I'm playing. The game's for keeps."

I placed my fingertips on both his temples and declared him a Candidate for Graduation.

"Ach!" he said, hoarse with pride. "You know what's ahead for you, Georgie? At the end of the circle?"

I smiled and gently mocked his accent. "A circle has an end? Auf wiedersehen, Max."

Yet a moment he clung to my amulet. "One favor you can do me, Georgie: blow your horn when the time comes, I want to hear it on the Shaft."

I promised I would, thrilling again at the way all chance seemed fraught with meaning and instruction. The original shophar, no longer blowable, I'd left in the Belly with Mother's purse and all my collected tokens except the stick and watch, the rest having done their job; but its mate (old Freddie's left) still lay, I trusted, in a certain tool-locker out in the barns, where I meant to go anyway before the Shafting.

"I'll drive you out," Anastasia said firmly, turning from her husband. "We'll use one of Maurice's cycles." I glowed at the miracle in her words, and agreed. Unable to speak for rage, Stoker fired both pistols into the air and raced his motor. His troopers laughed at his discomfiture. I beamed at him.

"You!" he roared at me, and turning then to the demonstrating students he shouted that the Grand Tutor was Harold Bray, who even then was on Founder's Hill preparing to do wonders at the Shafting, while I was a gross and treacherous impostor whom no committee in the College would condemn them for lynching. The half-dozen grinned appreciatively, and some of their classmates looked at me now with a new respect, which infuriated Stoker the more. As he harangued them I touched his temples from behind and declared him a Candidate for Graduation. My six were startled; even Max and Anastasia looked surprised.

"Wah!" Stoker bellowed, too paroxysed now to speak intelligently. "Wah! Wo! Wah!" Anastasia being nearest his reach, he clouted her with his helmet, knocking her into my arms. The sight drove him wild; actual tears stood in his eyes; he seemed about to shoot the pair of us.

"Maurice," Anastasia warned. "Don't you dare shoot. I'm pregnant."

"Wah! Wo!"

"I'm eight hours pregnant," she affirmed, in utter earnest. "By the Grand Tutor."

The troopers and students guffawed and cheered; Mother murmured, "A-plus." I marveled at My Ladyship's extraordinary conviction, wondering all the same whether the EAT-wave mightn't have got to her after all. As for Stoker, this declaration on the heels of my Certifying his Candidacy made him truly berserk: he wrenched the motorcycle into gear, cursing, babbling, snarling at once, while tears coursed over his grimed cheeks. Demonstrators sprang in all directions as he tore through; Max clutched the sidecar-wales. The rest of the troop, still laughing, straggled after — all save one, whose vehicle Anastasia commandeered by the simple expedient of threatening to tell Stoker that he'd forced her virtue. The trooper sneered, shrugged, growled something about Pantoffelheldentum — - but climbed up behind a smirking colleague, leaving his own motorcycle idling. Anastasia donned the helmet her spouse had swatted her with, passed Mother into the keeping of the forelocked aide (who seemed, like most of the student body, on familiar terms with My Ladyship), and bade me mount behind her, the vehicle being sidecarless.

"All's fair that ends well," Mother murmured to the air.

Stoker meanwhile, hurtling cornerwards, careered into a second motorcade — this one in perfect file, upon white engines — which had wheeled round from the Mall. The confusion obliged both parties to halt.

"Oh dear," Anastasia said, and blushed. "It's Mr. and Mrs. Rexford."