by John Barth
“Make way for the Grand Tutor!” Stoker shouted. “Let the Goat-Boy through!” But all were preoccupied with Croaker. Then indeed they scattered, not in deference to me but because Croaker happened to charge next in my direction, and I found myself facing him alone. The light embraced us both, and whether because he dimly recollected me or merely because I looked different from the others, he paused to blink. Then with a growl he came on. Notwithstanding my limp and the quantity of black liquor I had drunk, I felt no fear, only excitement, as in the days when I’d merrily baited the bucks of the herd. If Croaker was several times heavier than Redfearn’s Tommy, and more powerful, he was infinitely less nimble: he could not turn in his tracks, hook with his head, spring high in the air, or kick behind him, and he was easily faked out of balance. All I had to fear from him was the span of his arms and the clutch of his hands, both which I found it possible to elude by ducking, feinting, and springing—the finest arts of goatdom. The real danger was that the crowd who quickly pressed round to urge us on would take up my springing-room; this peril I minimized by the simple expedient of leading Croaker full tilt into them on every pass until they maintained a respectful distance.
“Ole!” they cheered, more enthusiastic than ever. “Olé! Olé!” Never since my ill-starred tenure as Dean of the Hill had I known such applause. I curbed my exhilaration with that memory and looked before I leaped, passing under his arms, feinting here, springing there, spinning, dodging, dancing from him, and always gauging from the corners of my eyes my distance from the crowd. Five times I passed him, and a sixth, each time more daringly, and he never touched me. After the second I was sure he recognized me: his roars turned to cunning grunts, and his eyes grew bright as a sportive buck’s. When on the fifth pass I spun him off-balance and brought him crashing down, he groaned as in protest and lost interest in the game; I believe I might have leaped upon his shoulders then and rode him with impunity, but loath to put an end to those olés I managed to tease him into one charge more. His heart was not in it; his eyes wandered even as he lunged, and fixed upon loud-hammed Madge, whom a lady and a gentleman had led unsteadily into the light. At sight of Croaker in academic gown she was seized with mirth—and wondrous was the dance of her bull’s-eyes in the glare! Croaker halted before them, blinked twice or thrice, gave a whimpering grunt, and snatched.
“Hunh, Croaker!” I cried, but he would not be provoked. Madge he flung over-shoulder like a sack of grain; she whooped but seemed not fearful as he bore her off. When I came up behind and dared even to thump his back with my fist, defying him to turn, she grabbed my hair and kissed me merrily, then waved and thrust out her tongue at the parting crowd. As for Croaker, I had as well challenged a black-oak trunk or buck in mid-service for all he heeded me. The spotlight followed them, as did many of my audience, and I considered chasing after; but others pressed drinks and attentions on me, a heady new pleasure I could not forgo. My original indignation had quite passed. Two of Stoker’s staff, I noted, were restoring G. Herrold to his repose on the dais-couch, and I twinged with a moment’s wonder whether all was well with Max; then Stoker joined the crowd around me, and I gave myself over to the dizzy spirits roused in me by exercise, and nourished by liquor and acclaim.
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 quite believe in 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!”
I pointed out to him—not however removing my eyes from Anastasia, on whom I smiled with mounting love—that had I said something stupid instead of wise, it would have made no difference.
“Quite! Quite! Absolutely!”
“We’re about ready for the funeral,” Stoker put in suavely. “I’m sure the Grand Tutor would like to say a Word of Passage over his friend before the cremation. It’s the usual thing.”
“Who cares whether it’s usual?” Dr. Sear demanded. “George has taken care of that point very brilliantly.”
“George,” Anastasia pleaded, and blushed when I turned to her. “Let’s go to my room. I’m all confused.”
“He could even do that!” Dr. Sear affirmed. There was some excitement in his voice.
“Anything at all,” Stoker laughed. “This one has it all over Enos Enoch.”
“No, really, Maurice, it’s actually a rather profound idea …”
“Kiss her, George!” Mrs. Sear commanded.
Anastasia frowned. “Don’t, Heddy!” But I kissed her lips at once—marvelous they were, and marvelously pliant her whole body in my arms. It was by way of being my first full experience of human embrace, in its passionate form (a thing unknown in the herd), and the pleasure of it set me afire. I heard cheers from Stoker and others; Mrs. Sear it must have been who stroked our hair and necks as we kissed, and her husband murmured approval.
“Beautiful, beautiful. Figures on a vase.”
With my hand in the small of her back I pressed her to my standing wrappered organ. She broke off the kiss then, but put her brow against my chin and said, “Think what you’re doing!”
“A Bride of Enos,” Dr. Sear remarked suddenly.
“Of course!” cried his wife. “Up on the dais! I wish I could paint it!”
“It’s perfect,” Dr. Sear insisted. “The will to believe and the will to be believed.”
“I’ll tell the band,” Stoker said. “Why not use the funeral-couch?”
Mrs. Sear clapped her hands and embraced the two of us again. “I don’t know which of you I envy more! Kiss me, George! Kiss me, Stacey!”
But it was Anastasia I kissed, lifting her chin in my hand.
“This is terrible,” she whispered. “You’d be committing adultery.”
In fact I’d not been thinking so far ahead, and even now the word paled before the image. I sipped tears from the long-lashed brims of both her eyes. More faintly yet she said, “At least let’s go somewhere else …”
For reply I swept her up, and a jubilant cry rose round about. Dr. Sear supported me with an arm about my waist; Anastasia hid her face in my shoulder. I had in mind no clear direction or intent; it was stirring enough just to hold her so. But Mrs. Sear went before us and Stoker before her, opening an aisle through the guests, who whistled and applauded as we passed. The roomlights darkened once again, and the floodlit dais gleamed ahead. Dr. Sear spoke quietly and clearly into my ear.
“In the old days this was the execution-chamber of Main Detention; they use it for high official funerals now. There’s a chute under the dais that leads to one of those natural ovens, like the ones you saw in the Furnace Room, and when a chancellor or vice-chancellor dies, they cremate the body from here and then sound the EAT-whistle to let the campus know. Maurice says the steam-boiler for the EAT-whistle is fired by the crematorium, but he’s probably joking. Quite an honor for your late friend, actually, even though it’s unofficial.”
But Anastasia from her slung perch disagreed. “It’s just Maurice’s idea of a party-joke, Kennard, and you know it. I think it’s terrible the things he does in Founder’s Hill.”
Dr. Sear gave a mild shrug and adjusted his spectacles upon a neat small bandage on the bridge of his nose.
“Never mind,” I said thickly. It surprised me a little to hear the girl speak with such crispness of impersonal matters, from my very arms, when desire so filled my own breast, and liquor my head, that I could scarcely make a sound. I was to learn in time that this disconcerting ability was characteristic of her and shared by many of her sisters in female studentdom: whatever her scruples and misgivings, once seized up she made herself as comfortable as if I were her favorite parlor chair.
“Way for the Bride of Enos!” Mrs. Sear called. She snatched a bowl of pretzels from someone and broadcast them like largesse, curtsyed before us, danced from one side of the aisle to the other, and time and again kissed Anastasia’s hair or the arms clasped round my neck. “Way for the Bride and Groom!”
“Honestly!” Anastasia protested. But the extravagance of Mrs. Sear’s ushering made her smile. Now the orchestra commenced a processional-piece:
“Oh, listen, George,” she said; “they’re playing the Alma Mater Dolorosa! I love that hymn.” And indeed it was most moving to hear her sweet girl voice against the stately horns:
I reached the dais wi
th tears in my eyes and gently set her upon its edge. The two guards grinned from their stations at the couch’s head, where Stoker too came now to meet us.
“All set,” he said briskly. “Heddy and Ken will get things ready while you’re saying your piece, and we’ll press a pedal at the head of the couch when you’re finished. Now, do you see that pull-cord, George?” He indicated a black braided rope suspended from the ceiling at the foot of the couch. “When a red light comes on in the tassel it means the cremation’s finished and the whistle’s ready to blow. You pull it for one long blast.”
“No more,” Dr. Sear appended with a chuckle, “or they’ll think it’s an EAT-alarm up on campus.”
Too stirred by the music and the solemn prospect to attend him closely, I let him assist me up onto the dais, whereat a comparative hush fell upon the room. From some corner came a half-hearted “Olé,” bespeaking in the far dark Croaker; from somewhere else came a shatter of glass, a mild oath, and a woman’s short laugh quickly shushed. But I was full of the sight of G. Herrold where he lay, arms folded now. The buckhorn, as ever, was in his hand; one dead eye was wide and the other shut, and his mouth was ajar as if to draw breath for bugling. The orchestra paused (I heard Anastasia behind me saying No, impossible, she’d die of shame even if I were), then wound into a dirge:
