Giles Goat Boy Read Online Free PDF

prospering, rank and income newly raised, my small fame spreading among the colleges—to a man whose Fancy is missing in action, all boons feel posthumous. The work before me (that I now put by with a show of interruption): Where was its clutch, its purchase? Something was desperately wanting: a thing that mightn’t be striven for, but must come giftlike and unsought; a windfall from orchards of the spirit, a voice from nowhere, a visitation. Indeed it was no novel … My heart turned sinking from the rest.
    All I said was, “Oh?”
    “My name is Stoker Giles,” the young man announced. His head still was propped on the singular stick, and he continued to regard me with an uncalled-for look of delight. Perhaps I was intended to recognize the name, but my hold on such things was never firm. Especially of late, though I lectured with animation, indeed almost fervidly, I had sensed myself losing command of memory and attention. Information escaped me; I could not recall my telephone number, and missed my way onthe most familiar campus paths. My family waited only for the day I should come home to some stranger’s house; their teasing had given way to concern, concern to impatience, and impatience to a silent rancor, which though I perceived it I could not seem to engage.
    I asked him whether he was a graduate student.
    “Well, at least I’m a Graduate.” His apparent amusement now positively irritated me, the more as it was not my place to draw his business out of him but his to state it. And then he mildly added, “I wonder if
you
are.”
    I think no one may accuse me of hauteur or superciliousness. In truth I reproach myself for being if anything over-timid, acquiescing too easily, suffering presumption to the point of unmanliness, and provoking contempt in my eagerness not to displease. But the man was impudent! I supposed he was referring to the doctoral degree; very well, I’d abandoned my efforts in that line years since, when I eloped with the muse. Moreover, I’d never pretended I had the memory and temper for scholarship, or even the intelligence: time and again I’ve followed some truly profound one to my limits and been obliged then to stand and watch, chin-high in the shallows, while he forged on past my depth. I was properly humble—and properly indifferent. To make is not the same as to think; there are more roads than one to the bottom of things.
    “You’d better take that box and get out,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Yes indeed you do!” As though at last we understood each other! Then he spoke my name in the gentlest tone (he had, I should say, a curious accent that I couldn’t place, but which sounded not native), and indicating my work-in-progress added, “But you know, this isn’t it. There’s much to be done; you mustn’t waste any more time.” In the face of my anger his voice became businesslike and brisk, though still cheerful. “Nor must I,” he declared. “Please listen now: I’ve read your books and understand them perfectly, and I’ve come a long way to see you. May I ask what you’re calling this one?”
    I was taken aback by a number of things. Not simply his presumption—
I
rather admired that, it recalled an assurance I once had myself and could wish for again; indeed he was so like a certain old memory of myself, and yet so
foreign
, even wild, I was put in mind of three dozen old stories wherein the hero meets his own reflection or is negotiated with by a personage from nether realms. Yet there was little of the Evil One about this chap, however much of the faun; it wouldn’t have surprised me to see he had cloven hooves, but the reed-pipe, rather than the pitchfork,would be his instrument. I found myself so caught up in such reflections as these, and contrariwise arrested by the tiresomeness of succumbing to an image the fellow obviously strove to affect, that annoyance and perspective got lost in my confusion. I couldn’t