John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Three who aspired to Candidacy I denied. Ira Hector for years pretended not to mind, so long as Reginald was a Candidate — their own conclusion. At his brother's death he seemed more concerned; declaring at once that Grand Tutors are humbugs and that I'm holding out on him for a better price, he has determined to outwait me — to outlive me, if necessary. And he shall, Old Man of the Mall; hornier, wrinkleder, and stingier term by term, he will blink and snap there on his bench when I am no more. Rumor has it — perhaps fostered by him — that I owe my survival as much to his covert influence as to Lucky Rexford's. But he can never pass.

Neither, I fear, can Croaker and Dr. Eierkopf, though the latter, following my rout of Harold Bray (whom now Eierkopf vowed he'd called ein Fliehender, not ein Fliegender), declared himself converted by the testimony of his eyes to my "cause." My advice to him was to join Croaker in darkest Frumentius, where together they might accomplish much, despite the imperfections of their partnership. The idea pleased him: certain Frumentian birds, for example, laid eggs the size of a man's head; he might even rewrite his great treatise, once the fracture in his skull had mended. But in the meanwhile, could I not affirm the Candidacy at least of his roommate? What about the passage from the Scrolls, cut into Croaker's gut: Be ye as the beasts of the woods, that never fail?

"They never fail," I replied, "because they're never Candidates." Gently as I could then I denied them, not failing however to thank them for their assistance, without which I could not have passed myself. They went off together to emergent jungle quads and have not since been seen — though I suspect they may be in terms to come.

Two on the other hand to whom I offered affirmation of their Candidacy refused it: Stoker and Lucius Rexford. Of Stoker little need be said: had he not refused me, I should have had to refuse him; denial is his affirmation, and from that contradiction he — indeed, the campus — draws strength. The Chancellor, to be sure, denies this, along with Stoker's imputation of their fraternity. Partly therefore, his image in New Tammany and around the University remains bright, though there are those who maintain that his administration, however brilliant, has accomplished little of practical consequence. The Boundary Dispute continues unresolved, they point out, and the Chancellory has failed to take a clear position on many grave issues — for example, the vexing question of what really happened at Max Spielman's Shafting. Popular opinion supports Bray's authenticity and holds me guilty of Grand-Tutorcide; conservatives want me Shafted; even the liberals, though generally skeptical of Grand-Tutorship and opposed to Shafting, wonder at my never being brought to trial, if only to "clear the air." Having thus alienated both ends of the Tower-Hall spectrum, Rexford finds it harder every term to keep me from the courts and disciplinary committees. His fastidious official neutrality, combined with much tacit support of my hard-oppressed "followers," has given rise to an ominous coalition of far-left and — right. Not that they care in their heart of hearts about Bray or me; but they see in the "Founder's Hill affair" an opportunity to lever Rexford out of office. Already the Senate has extended New Tammany's statute of limitations for "crimes against studentdom," among the number whereof Grand-Tutorcide is specifically included. My release this time may well spring their trap, and I have not forgotten Rexford's smiling words on the day I offered to affirm him.

From the host of my first Tutees, then, only Peter Greene and Anastasia remain to me. Between them they have assumed and divided the work of "spreading the word of GILES" — Anastasia about Great Mall, Greene to the outlying quads of New Tammany and abroad. A fervid enthusiast, Greene has found in extempore lecturing his true vocation, especially among the lower percentiles of the student body. Impressive he is, too, in his beautiful goatskins and fine red beard, when he points to his patchèd eyes and declares, "I have seen Him, brothers and sisters, and woe to them that drop His course! But I'm here to tell every flunkèd one of you today that it's not too late, reach-Commencement-Gate-the-Gilesian-way-no-matter-how-black-your-transcriptwise! A-plus!" His optimism is boundless; in his mind, "Gilesianism" is already inseparable from "New-Tammanianism," and he would make enrollment in the "New Curriculum" obligatory for all West-Campus studentdom. His wife, I understand, supports him in this endeavor; is in fact the organizing spirit of the "Gilesian Academy," that fugitive society of drop-outs, cranks, and idealists which meets clandestinely out in the tracts of the Forestry Department, and into which Greene has put all his wealth and managerial know-how.

Yet his labors have gained him little except contempt and vilification; even Anastasia, though she openly professes sympathy with his group, declares in private that what he calls "GILES's Answers" are flunkèd misrepresentations. Her own hopes, more and more, are centered in her son. She has brought him up (in the face of Stoker's derision) to believe that his mission on campus is one day to drive out what she ominously calls "the false proph-profs," without mentioning any names, as his "father" once drove out Bray, and to establish "true Gilesianism" in every quad.

How arbitrate between them? Greene has the advantage of a certain charisma and naïve force, as well as an efficient and affluent organization; Anastasia on the other hand makes much of the fact that while he may claim Candidacy, she is the sole living "Gilesian" Graduate on the campus, not to mention being bearer of "His" son. Daily their points of difference grow; their uneasy alliance, should their influence really spread, might someday turn into a schism as profound as that between East and West Campus. Thus far, my presence in the College, if nothing else, has deterred them from open denunciation of each other, and it was with an affecting display of classmateship that they jointly sponsored the "Revised New Syllabus" — even coerced me, with every show of respect, into this vain, inescapable labor, by threatening to send Tombo "off to school" should I not cooperate. I consented at once.

Tombo, Tombo! How they hate to bring you to the Visitation Room! How it galls them to see us together, we who know nothing of Gilesianism, New Curriculum, or Revised New Syllabus, but see termless Truth in each other's eyes! Watch out for Auntie Stacey, Tombo, apparently so doting, actually so jealous on her son's behalf, who bullies you cruelly in pretended play. Beware Uncle Peter, whom you so resemble: don't go with him to visit his sawmills; let him not lure you to the tapelift with all-day suckers! "Old Black George's" daughter's son, Tombo is; abandoned by his mother the fickle ex-secretary; raised in the Unwed Co-ed's Nursery of the New Tammany Lying-in; named by me what time I plucked him from that heartless, well-meaning fold and made him my errand-boy. Despite his red hair, it is G. Herrold I hear calling in his fleeced voice, so deep for a lad's; his mother to my knowledge never numbered buck-goats among her paramours, but Tombo's eyes are of the cast of Redfearn's Tom's and his noble line — hence my name for him. In those eyes alone upon this campus — not Greene's, gone; not Anastasia's, grown so hard; not "Giles Stoker's," all gleam and no vision — I see the reflection of myself, my hard history and my fate. He does not know, nor can I teach him, preciousest Tutee though he is; but if fate grant him time enough (he has, alas, neither Greene's nor G. Herrold's robust health, nor the wiry hardness of his namesakes or myself), and grant me to spirit him out of peril into some obscure pasturage — he will learn, will my Tombo! Yes, and one day hear, in his far sanctuary, a call, a summons…