The Green Revolution Read Online Free PDF

quickly it all came back. Witte seated at the desk talking to himself, occasionally scrawling illegibly on the blackboard—which was green; Witte had gotten a lot of mileage out of that—ignoring the men before him, winning argument after argument. Nowadays he would have been mistaken for someone using a cell phone.
    â€œ Esse est percipi ,” Genoux cried out in remembrance.
    â€œTo think you would remember a fallacy like that. What do they have you doing now?”
    Genoux hesitated. “I’m in the English department.” This was technically true.
    â€œThis place is going to hell in a handbasket. Do you know anyone in the administration?”
    Genoux’s heart sank. He stood. “I’ve come to see Father Carmody.”
    â€œI asked him to go straighten those birds out, but nothing’s happened yet. Of course, he’s not the power he once was.”
    The sliding door might have been a window. “Punch the numbers into that gizmo on the left.” Witte gave him the numbers, Genoux entered them, and the door slid open. “I’m never sure whether that’s meant to keep people out or to keep us in,” Witte said. It sounded like a problem in epistemology.
    â€œWhat a delight to see you, Father,” Genoux said as the doors slid open.
    â€œSay a prayer for me, Father.”
    Genoux raised his hand as if in blessing, and the guillotine of the doors closed behind him. How genuine and simple Witte’s request had seemed. Was he ill? The cigar might have been like the famous cigarette before the blindfold is put on the one condemned to die.
    *   *   *
    â€œWitte? Sound as a dollar,” Carmody said, when the nurse at the great arc of a reception desk had directed Genoux down the hall. Carmody’s room might have been anywhere, huge, lots of books, a desk that suggested an active life, overlooking the lake. There was the smell of tobacco in the air. Perhaps Carmody had given himself an exemption from the campuswide ban. “Once Witte went back to smoking, all his ailments left him.”
    â€œHo ho.”
    â€œBelieve it or not.”
    â€œTell it to the surgeon general.”
    â€œSo what’s on your mind? Iggie Willis?”
    Genoux sat on a footstool, almost welcoming the symbolism. I will make thine enemy a footstool for thy feet. Then, too, he had come to sit at Carmody’s feet. “I would like to see if you couldn’t get him to stop stirring up the alumni.”
    â€œI thought you would welcome that as a diversion.”
    â€œThen you know of the Weeping Willows?”
    â€œOf course. They’ve consulted me.”
    â€œYou’re advising them!” My God, with Carmody behind them they would soon know all the skeletons in the closet.
    â€œHardly that, Father. Nor do they need my advice. Surely you realize they are among our most distinguished alumni.”
    This surprised Genoux. He did not know that. In the past few years his notion of distinguished alumni was members of the board, donors, a few politicians who, alas, were following the lead of other Catholic politicians. Carmody was rattling off names, followed by a brief description. Medal of Honor, Presidential Medal—“Like Ted’s”—chief justice of a state supreme court, two novelists, one of whom had won the Pulitzer—“When it meant something”—several auxiliary bishops, a recently named cardinal. Genoux knew of the latter. He had found himself too busy to come to campus to be honored by his alma mater. Genoux realized that he had lumped the founders of the Weeping Willow Society with Willis’s Web site.
    â€œI see what you mean.”
    â€œIf I were still advising…”
    â€œFather, that is why I’m here.”
    â€œAnswer their letters.”
    â€œI wish it were that simple.”
    â€œDon’t they listen to you over there?”
    Genoux tried to explain. Everything