John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Especially cordial were the pair who a few minutes earlier had escorted Madge onto the scene, and whom Stoker identified now as Dr. Kennard Sear and Hedwig, his wife.

"Enchanté," the doctor smiled. "Remarkable performance." A long dry gentleman he was, superbly manicured and groomed, with close silver hair and fine soft garments. His face, frame, and fingers were thin tan, even his voice was, and without moisture; only his eyes were less than desiccate, their pale brightness turning into glitter at every blink. The whole effect of him was of a lean pear dried in the sun, its gold juice burnt into thin exotic savor — and in fact it was pleasant to smell him, all but his breath, which was slightly foul. "Doesn't he have classic features, Hed?" he asked his wife.

"He looks like Maurice in bronze!" Mrs. Sear exclaimed. "He could be your younger brother, Maurice." She too, and her voice, were dry and not unhandsome, but where her husband seemed cured, like supplest vellum, Mrs. Sear was brittle — sharp-edged as the stones on her ears and hands, but more fragile.

Stoker affirmed the resemblance. "George's got more in common with me than some brothers I could mention."

"You're really Max Spielman's protégé?" Dr. Sear asked smoothly. "We must have some interviews."

"And evenings," Mrs. Sear insisted, narrowing her bright eyes and touching my fleece with her long red nails. "Something more intime than this madhouse of Maurice's. Are you matriculating, or just on tour?"

"Ma'am?" Despite my liquor I felt at ease and self-possessed, they so obviously admired me. But I had difficulty following conversations. It occurred to me to remark that I had once loved a doeling named Hedda; but I forbore on the grounds of possible tactlessness, and thought myself a subtle fellow.

"You haven't heard, Heddy?" Stoker cried. "This is no ordinary goat-boy: he's come to show you and me how to pass the Finals!"

"Dear me," Dr. Sear said mildly. "Another one?"

"Oh, George!" his wife scolded me. "That's too tiresome! You're charming enough just as you are. Isn't he, Ken?"

"A regular faun," her husband agreed. "We'll certainly have you out some evening."

"Watch him, though," Stoker warned. "He bites bellies."

"Just be a goat-boy," Mrs. Sear said, like a child giving an order, and patted my shoulder. "It's much more original. Everybody's a Grand Tutor lately."

I only smiled at them, they were such amiable people. The orchestra struck up a spirited tune, and the bystanders dispersed, some to dance, others to join a new excitement across the room, whither Croaker had fetched his prize. Dr. Sear took two glasses from a passing waiter and gave one to me. His wife congratulated Stoker on his knack for "turning up originals," declaring he'd surpassed himself this evening with Croaker, myself, and "that delicious creature with the boots and bull's-eyes."

Stoker grinned. "I knew you'd hit it off with Madge."

"I couldn't keep my hands off her! Is she George's… mate?"

"Just a pipefitter from the Furnace Room," Stoker said lightly. "I'll get her to give you her number after the cremation — if there's anything left of her when Croaker gets through."

I declared that I had no mate.

"You don't? " Mistaking my meaning, both Sears expressed their sympathy and assured me that that condition need last no longer than I wished it to. "The co-eds will go wild over you," Mrs. Sear said enviously, and her husband agreed, adding in a frank and cordial tone that if however I preferred a maturer and more knowledgeable partner, one from whom even a young satyr like myself might learn a thing or two, he did not judge it out of place to propose…

"Here comes Heddy's competition," Stoker interrupted, and my chest tingled at the sight of Anastasia coming towards us. She had exchanged her soiled white shift for a long-sleeved wrapper of red silk, belted at the waist — a sleeping-garment, perhaps — and her hair was piled now high on her head and bound with red ribbon. Beautiful, beautiful she was: her face seemed rather paler, and her eyes were most luminously troubled as she made her way through the brawling crowd.

"Stacey darling! " Mrs. Sear hastened to embrace her. "I heard what happened in the Gorge, dear baby! Did it hurt you terribly?"

What she replied I could not hear, but she acknowledged Mrs. Sear's demonstration with a quick smile and turned her cheek to be kissed. The woman hung onto her, touching now her shoulder, now her hair, and with an arm slipped around her waist led her up to us. Dr. Sear hastened to add his sympathy to his wife's, catching Anastasia's hand briefly in both of his and brushing gracefully with his lips her forehead. For a long moment her eyes were on me, questioning, appraising, and I endeavored to give back a gaze equally intense; but though my mind and flesh were most passionately stirred, there was no clearness left in me, and I swayed on my feet. She flashed a blaming look at Stoker, who was regarding us as usual with huge amusement.

"He's drunk!" she said bitterly.

I pointed my stick at her. "Come here to me, Anastasia." She turned her face away as I approached. "I love you," I said sternly.

"You don't know what you're saying."

Stoker explained to the Sears that I'd made the faux pas of declaring I loved all studentdom equally.

Hedwig purred. "Of course he does, dear: he's supposed to." They both caressed her, and Dr. Sear patted my shoulder also, as if to bridge our differences.

"I'm not upset," Anastasia said crossly. "Maurice is only teasing."

"She's his first Tutee," Stoker said.

"She will be," I declared, and touched the back of my fingers to her neck. She stiffened, but did not withdraw. "But she doesn't believe me yet."

Dr. Sear looked interestedly into my face for a moment and then exclaimed to Stoker: "Splendid fellow! Can't get over it!"

"Enos Enoch with balls," Stoker agreed. "Did you notice his amulet, Hedwig?"

Mrs. Sear did now, caught it up in her hands, and squealed with delight.

"Aren't they a handsome pair," her husband murmured.

"They are, Kennard!"

"No, my dear, I mean Stacey and George. They're nymph and faun." He joined my hand to hers, declaring that all things beautiful ravished his spirit; that Beauty in fact was as close to being the Answer as anything he knew. "I've been exposed to every idea in the University, George," he complained with a smile, "and don't believe in any of them. But if there were such a thing as Finals, and I were the Grand Tutor, I'd pass the two of you just for being beautiful."

Anastasia blushed. When I made to sip my drink she stayed my hand. "Please don't drink any more. Maurice wants to make a fool of you."

I declared myself indifferent to that prospect.

Mrs. Sear embraced us both. "I'd love to paint you together! In the nude!"

"It matters to me," Anastasia said quietly. "He wants to show them you aren't what you say you are."

Dr. Sear agreed with his wife that we would make a splendid group.

"Could you work from a photograph, Heddy?" Stoker asked. "We could photograph them after the funeral."

"Let him do what he wants to," I said to Anastasia, squeezing her hand. "Whatever I do and however I look, I'm still the Grand Tutor."

"Listen to him!" Dr. Sear marveled.

"Didn't I tell you?" Stoker said. "He's a natural."

"A Grand Tutor doesn't get drunk and make a public fool of himself!" Anastasia scolded.

"A Grand Tutor does what I do," I replied, and, not certain I'd made my meaning clear, I added, "It's not what I do, it's because I do it."

"Why — that's perfect!" Dr. Sear exclaimed. "What a thing to say!"