The Grasshopper King Read Online Free PDF

scholars huddled in the aisle.
    Higgs climbed to the stage; the audience, as one, craned forward. Higgs looked around. As always, he had no notes. His eyes flicked from one curious face to another, betraying nothing; to the ceiling lights, trained on him; to the fire exits on each side; back down to the podium. He cleared his throat. The audience waited: a minute, then two, then five. Something in Higgs’s carriage, the determined set of his mouth and the angle of his jut over the podium, made him seem continuously on the verge of beginning. It was impossible to leave.
    It was forty minutes before Higgs—his audience still intact—said a word.
    â€œThe ‘feasting grubs’ in the 1939 folio should be construed as referring to the banquet of maggots in the original Book III of God of Bile , rather than to the fall of the Basque provinces to the nationalists, as has been conventionally understood.”
    Interesting, came the murmurs from the crowd, yes, I see that, interesting! Now things were moving along! And they waited, pens cocked, free hands tangled in hair, to see how Higgs would continue.
    But Higgs was done. He had nothing to gather up; he walked off the left side of the stage and out the door.
    There was a pause. “This is sad,” one scholar said. “I saw him at Trieste,” said another. “Didn’t I meet you at Trieste?” Someone had a copy of the relevant folio and a crowd formed around him, bending to the pages, the folly of the heretofore prevailing viewpoint already becoming clear.
    Dean Moresby had hurried from the auditorium when he saw Higgs leave. He caught up with him on the low rise that immediately preceded his son-in-law’s house. Below him he could see the house, the cliff, and, off to his left, the gray, morose water of the reservoir. Breathing hard, he put a hand on Higgs’s shoulder.
    â€œStan,” he said (wincing), “what’s going on? What kind of an idea is that speech? What is your idea in making everybody wait for an hour and then, and then saying just the one thing and walking off?”
    â€œWhat else did you want me to say?” Higgs asked. And Dean Moresby didn’t have an answer.
    Less than a month later—to be precise, on the tenth of January, 1972, sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 P . M .—Higgs entered Happy Clappy’s, the undergraduate cafeteria, through the north door, and proceeded approximately ninety feet to the à la carte counter, where he ordered a cheeseburger, medium rare, with lettuce and mayonnaise. The student on grill duty was Cheryl Hister, a junior.She recognized Higgs. After the one-sentence address the school paper had run a photograph.
    â€œThat comes with fries or baked potato, Professor Higgs,” Cheryl said. “Which would you like?” Higgs thought for a good long time.
    â€œPotato,” he said.
    â€œPotato?” Rosso asked. Around him sat the members of the emergency faculty committee, nursing stale coffee. “You’re sure that’s what he said? Potato?”
    â€œI told you,” Cheryl said tearfully. “I asked him which he wanted and he said ‘Potato.’” She dragged one frilly sleeve across her nose. They’d made her wear her Happy Clappy’s uniform for the reenactment.
    â€œYou’re doing fine,” Rosso told her. “Nobody’s saying otherwise.”
    He directed a gathering-in gesture at the row of wan faces flanking him, soliciting consensus. Oh no, came the murmur. Nobody’s saying that.
    â€œBut I want you to think back very carefully now, one more time, and tell me if Professor Higgs might have said anything besides ‘Potato.’”
    â€œPotato,” Cheryl said. “That is absolutely the last thing and then I gave him his cheeseburger. Which he ate and then left. Can’t I go home?”
    The rest of the committee was growing restless. It had been two hours and they’d