John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

Now we passed swiftly through a series of residential districts — rather handsome, I thought, though I could not understand at once why a family of four or five required as much stall-space as our entire herd — and pressed into the formidable traffic of the central quads. I clutched Croaker's head and gazed as one reluctant to believe his eyes; I could not have said which were most dismaying: the mighty buildings, square after square ablaze with light; the multitude of human folk, mostly young people in similar costume, who thronged the sidewalks with books in their hands and plugs in their ears, through which I was told they heard musical sounds from a central transmitter; or the elm-lined avenues themselves, wide as a pasture, paved in black, and lit like noon by blue-white lamps armed out from poles. All glittered in observance of the Spring Carnival: huge foil-and-tinsel ovoids hung suspended over intersections; on the arm of every lamp-post perched a mammoth butterfly, terrifying until I learned they were not real creatures; their sequined wings, three meters in span, slowly closed and opened, sparkling with little lights in half a dozen colors. Here and there we saw groups of celebrants in gaudy garb, singing and roistering; some wore dominoes and checkered tights, others caps with bells or full-face masks, horrid of aspect; here was a girl delicious in white tights and tall silk ears, with a ball of cotton fluff atop the cleft of her rump; there a muscled red-cloaked chap with hayfork and imitation horns. These sometimes saluted as we passed, and merrily I waved my stick in reply; the rest ignored them and us alike, unless to make apprehensive way for Croaker. From everywhere the bold bright messages flashed at us: DEGREES WITH EASE — SAY "PHYS. ED., PLEASE." NO SWEAT: PRE-VET. HAPPY CARNIVAL FROM YOUR DEPARTMENT OF POULTRY HUSBANDRY.

"No zing in that there last one," Peter Greene remarked. Having made our way down what appeared to be the widest and most resplendent thoroughfare, we parked the motorcycle at its end. Here the boulevard became a mighty lawn of grass, flanked by statelier buildings and nobler elms, and fronted, just before us, by an iron fence-gate twenty meters tall. Unlike all else of eminence round about, Main Gate (for so I recognized it, with a shiver, and the lawn as Great Mall, and the imposing edifice far down it as Tower Hall) was unlit: guards prowled in the shadow along the ivied, gargoyled wall into which it made and before the famous one-way turnstile at the road's end. I was much excited by the general spectacle, and impatient to see all at once. It was the last night of the Carnival: crews of workmen were already dismantling some temporary structures along the mall; on one side of us was many-storied Bi-Sci House, the exclusive apartment hotel for professors of the natural sciences, with its notorious Vivisection Bar-B-Q underneath; adjacent were the glittering Gate House Ballroom, the Sophomore Cinema and Shooting Gallery, and other places of amusement whose fame was campus-wide. Opposite were cultural attractions: the Fine Arts Salesroom, the Pan-Sororal Playhouse, and nearest us, sloping down from Mall Wall, the vast Amphitheater managed jointly by the Sub-Departments of Ancient Narrative and Theatrical Science. I was taken with particular curiosity by this last because the playbills advertised that evening's performance as The Tragedy of Taliped Decanus, a work of whose hero I had heard though I hadn't read the tale of his adventures. It was to be the conclusion of a week-long series of classical productions, and lines of people were already filing in to witness it.

"Y'all want to take a look-see?" Greene suggested when I expressed my interest. "I never was much a one for stage-plays, but they do say there's hot stuff in this one." He insisted then that we permit him to buy tickets for the four of us, including Croaker, who though surely unable to comprehend the play could not safely be left alone; there would be ample time afterwards to tour the midway, if we chose. Before this generosity I saw Max's expression soften; nevertheless he declined the invitation on the grounds that we had yet to find cheap lodging for the night, and that I had better retire early against the ordeal of registration, which was scheduled for sunup next morning — especially as I'd done my share of celebrating the night before. Moreover, he had certain advices and cautions to give me that evening, in case there should be no opportunity next day. I was disappointed, and yet gratified to see Max displaying something of his old concern for me.

But Greene would not be gainsaid. "Tell him what you want to while I fetch the tickets," he proposed, and offered further to spare us the bother of searching for rooms; all he had to do, he declared, was telephone from the ticket-office to the JELI, or Junior Enochist League Inn, where as past League Chairman he was always entitled to free accommodations. He would hear no further protests, just as during the ride from the Pedal Inn he'd refused to listen seriously to my assurances that I was in good faith a Grand Tutor, or Grand-Tutor-to-be, and not a pretender, madman, or costumed Carnival-goer. "The woods is full of 'em this time of year," he'd smiled. "But I know by your face you're okay. I believe for a fact you're the Goat-Boy, like you said, and that's wonder enough." Now, as then, Max shrugged, as if to say there was no use contending further, Greene might have it as he pleased. And he admitted that it might be fitting to witness the profoundest of the Lykeionian tragedies before I matriculated: there was no coincidence in its being produced just at Carnival's end, before the Spring Matriculation rituals. But he really must speak to me first confidentially, as my advisor. Greene went off happily to buy the tickets.

"Odd chap!" I remarked after him. "I don't know whether I like him, but he's certainly obliging."

Max made a deprecating gesture. "He's okay; I don't mind him."

I made bold to point out that he, Max, had not been consistently so tolerant during the afternoon and earlier evening, towards either Greene or myself, and begged him please to excuse once and for all my behavior at the Powerhouse or, if he found it inexcusable, allow me to proceed upon my way as I had set out, without the benefit of his company and counsel. The rebuke didn't sting him; indeed, he seemed if anything pleased to hear it. He nodded several times and said quietly, "You don't talk like a kid, all right. Na, George…" He put an arm about my back (I had come down off Croaker) with more affection than he'd shown me for some time; I was quite moved by the gesture and the warmth in his voice as he explained what lay immediately ahead for me, though at the same time I wondered at a mournful urgency in his face, as if what he was saying must be said without delay.

"We'll talk about the Powerhouse and Maurice Stoker when there's time," he said. "There's more important business now." Leaving Croaker my stick to gnaw upon, we strolled onto the grassy verge of the Mall, near the gate. "Things like the Gorge and the Power Plant were just sidetracks, Georgie, bad as they were. Same with that poor girl Anastasia that thinks I'm her poppa — just a sidetrack, whether she meant to be or not. But right there is the first big hurdle you got to get over." He indicated the Turnstile with a wave of his hand. "It shouldn't be any trouble — what I mean, it's either impossible or easy, never in-between — but you mustn't get sidetracked or hesitate even for an eyeblink when the time comes, or you're kaput."

He then explained briefly the ritual of registration and matriculation as it had developed in the West-Campus colleges, especially New Tammany, in modern times. The large gates on either side of the Turnstile, presently closed, normally stood open and were the common entryways to the heart of the College, the site originally of all its buildings and latterly of the administrative and military-science quadrangles. Theoretically no one except Graduates and Certified Candidates for Graduation was admitted, and in the heyday of the Enochist Curriculum this restriction was technically enforced, the Enochist Fraternity ruling on credentials as the Founder's deputy in the University. Over the semesters, however, as the Fraternity's authority had declined and the nature and existence of the Founder Himself was debated and challenged, the practice had fallen into disuse. Even in the old days those outside the various Mall Walls of West Campus had always outnumbered those within and were included in the Fraternal hegemony and instructed by its professors; Many are Registered but few are Qualified, Enos Enoch had said, and inasmuch as none but Him could tell true Candidates from false, the Fraternity tutored everybody. Today it was strictly forbidden in the by-laws of colleges such as NTC to disqualify a man for matriculation and campus office by reason of his pedagogical beliefs, and in lieu of the old Degrees of Wisdom, the administration conferred upon anyone who completed his course-work successfully and passed certain "technical examinations" a Certificate of Proficiency in the Field; such men were called "graduates," were said to have "commenced," and were eligible either for employment in their "fields" or for further study beyond the C.P.F., at the end of which they became "professors" in their own right — a far cry from the original meaning of those terms! Yet the Enochist tradition was preserved in certain college rituals — echoed, rather, for the celebrants had little idea what it was they celebrated: the Spring Carnival itself, with its attendant symbols, was one such tradition, originating in ancient agronomical ceremonies and modified by the Enochist Fraternity to celebrate the Expulsion of Enos Enoch, His promotion of the Old-Syllabus Emeritus Profs from the Nether Campus, and His triumphal Reinstatement. Trial-by-Turnstile was another, observed at the opening of each term and with especial solemnity at Spring Registration, which was scheduled for next morning. The tradition was that only bonafide Candidates for Graduation (using the terms in their original sense) could pass through the Turnstile and the tiny gate somewhere beyond it — both which, being one-way affairs, committed the passer-through not to anything so prosaic as "Minimums" and C.P.F.'s, but to the Final Examination and thus to absolute Commencement or Flunking Out.