by John Barth
They had left their bicycles, climbed the fence, and tramped a hundred meters into the meadow. At first I supposed they were escaping, but when they spread a blanket on the ground and the male returned to fetch cans of some beverage from his machine, I put by that notion. Presently he embraced her with one arm, at the same time drinking from his little can, and I began to realize what they were about. The buck I observed to be in a virile way, and the doe snuggled against his flank with a nervousness I knew the cause of. I took them for superior specimens of their breed: they were shaggier than most, for one thing, and smelled like proper animals. The male had a fine fleecy beard, and neck hair quite as thick as mine, though neither so long nor so ably brushed; his mate had the simple good taste not to shave what little fur the species is vouchsafed for their legs. More, at the first opportunity they shucked off their eyeglasses and leather shoes, thereby rendering themselves more handsome in both odor and appearance. In short, as admirable a pair as I’d yet espied, and I waited with some curiosity to see her serviced.
Imagine my bewilderment when, instead of putting off their wrappers, they began to talk! I suddenly wondered, thinking of Lady Creamhair, whether among humans this did for copulation: if so, the buck at hand was in very truth a stud. With his tin he gestured toward the western glow of New Tammany, and hoarse with ardor said, “Chickie, look at those lights!”
The doe shook her head and gave a shudder. “I know. I know what you mean.”
His voice mounted over her. “The Campus … hath not anything more fair …”
“Don’t, please,” she begged, but laid her head on his shoulder. My breath came faster; I was as fired with desire as he when he next declared, “You mustn’t be afraid of it. You’ve got to let go.”
What would she let go of? I hunkered closer and squinted to see. She pressed her nose into his high-necked sweater and protested, “You don’t know what that poem does to me!”
“Suffer it,” ordered her mate—not Brickett Ranunculus more inexorably mastered his does! “The Pre-Schoolist poets knew what naked feeling was.”
“That’s just it,” the female said. “That’s it exactly. I’m—naked to that poem, you know?”
Here I tumesced, for the fellow turned her face deliberately to his and intoned: “These lecture-halls do like a garment wear the beauty of the nighttime …” Was it for pain or joy she closed her eyes, bit her lip? “Labs, towers, dorms, and classrooms lie all bright and glittering in the smokeless air …” She clutched at the wool of his sleeves, fighting as must all nannies against what passionately now she craved; and at length, in hoarse surrender, whispered: “Ne’er saw I, never felt, a surge so deep! The Tower Clock moves on at its sweet will … Oh my! I can’t!”
But surely, with no pause in the rhythm of his woo, her buck pressed home: “Dear Founder! See the Library—glowing keep of all thy mighty mind—resplendent still!”
At that penultimate hiss the female made a little cry and wrenched away. For some seconds she lay as if stricken, while her mate, hard respiring, drained off his drink and flung away the can. I too felt emptied.
Presently in a new voice he said, “Cigarette.” She shook her head, then changed her mind and sat up to smoke, as Lady Creamhair often did. They smoked in silence, neither looking at the other, until the male asked her, almost brusquely, how she felt.
“How do you think I feel?” she muttered. “You knew what you were doing.”
He drew her down with him on the blanket. “Are you sorry we said the poem?”
No, she said, she didn’t suppose she was sorry. “I’m still a little mid-percentile about first dates, I guess. When two people start off with something like that—what does it leave for later?”
I had moved some paces back lest my heart, still pounding with their late excitement, betray me. But at these words I crept close again. They were kissing now, and a business of their hands gave me to question my original surmise. I barely heard him swear to her that it was not any girl he’d share that sonnet with: she mustn’t fear he’d disrespect her for permitting him to recite it on their first evening together.
“I know how you feel,” he assured her, caressing her wrapper. “The way things are nowadays, sex doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just a sport like tennis, you know? The really personal thing between a man and a woman is communication.”
She put his hand away and agreed. “It’s all that matters. Because who believes in Passing and Failing these days?”
“Right!”
“And if there’s no Examiner and no Dean o’ Flunks, nothing a student does makes any sense. That’s the way I see it, anyhow.”
“You’ve been reading the Ismists,” her companion said, and sought along her leotard with the rejected hand. “And they’re right, too, as far as they go. The student condition is absurd, and you’ve either got to drop out or come to terms with the absurdity.” He went on to assert (at the same time parrying with his left hand her parry of his right) that this absurdity had both exhilarating and anguishing aspects, chief among the former whereof he counted the decline—he might even say decease—of conventional mid-percentile morality. “The worst thing about that old prudery—flunk that button! What I was saying, it made everybody so afraid of their desires—”
“Wait, Harry,” she complained. “I don’t think … Honestly, now—”
“No,” he charged, “you don’t think honestly. None of us does, till we learn to be as natural about our bodies as—as goats are. These co-eds that deny their instincts in the name of some dark old lie like Final Examinations—they’re the ones that keep the Psych Clinic busy. Here we go.”
“Please!” The girl tried to sit up now; there was a note of alarm in her protest. But her companion drew her down.
“Chickie, we communicated, you know? I thought you had a real feeling for the Pre-Schoolists!”
She tossed her head. “I do, I swear!”
“You’re not another fake, are you, Chickie?” He seemed angry with her now, and even hesitated just a moment before returning to his work, as if uncertain of her worth. Almost fiercely he declared that nothing in the mad University mattered except Beauty: the beauty of art, of language, and above all, of simple existence. That, he took it—and now they grappled in earnest—was the first principle of Beism, a philosophy both deeper and farther-reaching than anything within the Ismists’ compass.
“Oh Harry! My goodness!”
“There, Chickie. There.”
Just consider the state of the University, he challenged her: two armed campuses, each cynically lecturing Peace of Mind while it made ready to EAT the other. Great professors of poetry went begging; yet loud-shirted engineers drew fabulous salaries for developing WESCAC’s weaponry, the very testing of which bid fair to poison the minds of undergraduates not yet matriculated. In vain did student leaders like himself exhort West Campus to seize the moral initiative by de-programming unilaterally: their credo, Better East than beast, was shouted down by misguided alma-materists and advocates of “preventive riot” with their smugly belligerent slogan Better EAT than be EATen …
“Look at Spielman,” he advised, and I pricked up my ears, though it was something else I strove to look at. “All he asked was that the flunking Computer not be programmed to EAT its enemies automatically. So they call him a Student-Unionist, and they strip him of his privileges—”
“Oh dear!” the female fretted, whose leotard now went the way of Max’s rank and tenure.
“So it’s all meaningless,” the bearded one went on. “There aren’t any Finals; there’s no Dean o’ Flunks at the South Exit to punish us if we don’t Pass. Every question is multiple-choice; there’s no final point or meaning in the University, it’s—look here, it’s like this: a naked physical fact!”
I gasped with Chickie.
“Like the Ismists say, it all comes down to distinctions in our minds; we can’t ever get to the things themselves. We can thrust, and we can thrust …”
“
No!”
“… but the screen … the flunking screen … it’s always there. And when you try … to break through it … you’re just affirming … that it’s there.”
“Oh my!”
He paused. “Where I part company with the Ismists, though, is when they say our only choice is to accept the screen, and give up hope of ever knowing things absolutely. You’ll have to read Footnotes to Sakhyan one of these days—it’s the Syllabus of Beism, you know …”
“Don’t talk!” his nan cried.
“Sure. You’ve got it exactly. You’ve got to say flunk that screen, and flunk Reality, and flunk True and False. Flunk all!”
“Flunk me, Harry! I know I’m going to shout …”
“It’s no good asking what is—”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
“—you’ve got to be, Chickie! Be! Be!”
Beyond any question then they Were, locked past discourse in their odd embrace. And I was fetched with them to the verge of Being; I who neither was nor was not, my blood and bones they shuddered to become!
As is the way of does, the girl called Chickie, having Been, craved yet again to Be; put off her wools, unhobbled her udder, and pled to Harry that he school her more in that verb’s grammar. He, however, seemed done with conjugating.
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded when I said ‘Shut up,’ ” she apologized, hugging him round the neck.
“No, no, you were right, of course.” But his voice was short, and he reached to open another tin as if nothing were pressing at his ribs.
Yet though she entreated and rebuked him, bit at his lobe and cavorted in the gorse, he could not be roused. Not even her offer to shout out verses while they Were could move him.
“Don’t be coarse,” he said.
She teased, she scolded, she declared her husband was a better man; yet there was nothing for it but to dress and depart. Her black garment had been flung upon the bush of autumn-olive that concealed me; she slipped into it not three feet from where I squatted.
“Some Beist,” she pouted. Her friend had already gathered up the blanket and turned toward the road. “I’ve got twice as much Beist in me as you have.”
She drew the waistband over her hips, and I trembled to seize what dimpled near me. Ah, Chickie! my green loins called as she followed after him: poor pretty doe fretful to be bucked, hie here if it’s a beast you’re after! Hie to one a-wrack with the yen to Be; one the mere sight of your haunch has caused whom to Become himself, willy-nilly, and to stand one moment later again at the ready! When the coast was clear I tore out of my wrapper and frisked Chickie-like through the brush, hooting joyfully my pain. To Be, and once more to Be! To burst into all creation; only to Be, always to Be, until no thing was: no Billy Bocksfuss, goat or Graduate, no I nor you nor University, but one placeless, timeless, nameless throb of Being!
6.
The next day was the longest in the year. My lust went from me with the dew that steamed off the fields where I had lain drenched; not so my resolve. When I trotted to the barn for breakfast I met Max bringing the herd out into the pound. The does moved aside as I approached—but not in the way they’d shunned me when I smelt of soap. Rather, they were wary but not displeased, as if a randy buck had come upon them. I noted with satisfaction that pretty Hedda seemed especially flustered. She snorted when I stroked her ears; speaking softly I made bold to touch one speckled teat, never yet swollen with the charge of motherhood, and she danced away—but not far, and looked back wide-eyed over her shoulder. Max laughed with me, and hesitantly squeezed my arm. He had not slept either, it appeared; but in his face was much relief.
“So,” he said. “You made your mind up?”
“Almost,” I replied. “There’s something I want to do first.” Then I added quickly, for his old eyes clouded: “But I’m all right, Max. I’ll know in a little while.”
He nodded. “That’s so; I see that. Well, well …” As if to calm himself he began explaining that the herd would remain in the pound until dinnertime, as he had work to do in the Livestock Branch of the Library, just across the Road. He was currently engaged with several notions in the field of applied cyclology, his own invention; perhaps I too would find them interesting; at any rate he would be pleased to set them forth to me that evening—assuming, of course …
But the assumption was left unmade, for there hove into sight just then a bicycle, and Lady Creamhair. My heart drew up: I had not expected her until evening. Had she then come to some resolve of her own, that she drove up full in Max’s view? But I was reckoning without her nearsightedness: she peered and craned all the way along the fence; not until she was abreast of the pound did she seem to catch sight of us together, whereupon she ducked her head and pedaled on towards the grove of hemlocks.
Max thrust five fingers into his beard. “By George, now …”
I declared uncomfortably that I had no idea why the woman had come out so early, but I guessed she had the right to drive past whenever she pleased.
“Na, bah,” Max said, “I didn’t mean that. Thunder and lightning, though, if something doesn’t wonder me …” He touched my shoulder, frowning and blinking. “She’s waiting now for you, eh?”
“She can wait,” I said. On a surly impulse I invited, or rather challenged him to come along and meet my friend, whose early appearance, however surprising, had inflamed my resolve. But he declined, quite distracted still.
“Ach, Billy, I don’t know what to tell you. Almost I think—hah! No matter anyhow, either way! So. So.” He thumped my shoulder. “What difference? If you are, you are; if you’re not—no matter! But I’ll see you again, you promise? You’ll wait and tell me what’s what, eh? And then maybe—we’ll see!”
We parted, each in agitation, Max to his researches (still nodding and clucking), I across the pasture towards the hemlock grove. The noisy rooks and thrashers had done their first feeding; the sun was well up, hot on my wrapper. I broke into a trot. My puzzlement slipped away; through my spirit pulsed the verse I’d overheard:
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a surge so deep!
A surge, irresistible and sure, that would be neither hurried nor gainsaid; Tower Clock, it moved at its sweet will, fetching to ripeness every thing which was.
At sight of Lady Creamhair waving in the grove I came to a heavy walk. She was dressed in the color of her hair. In one hand she held her picnic-basket; with the other she alternately waved and shaded her eyes to see me. I stalked up without response, but jarred by the strikings of my heart. She began to talk and laugh.
“I’m a foolish old woman, you don’t have to tell me—with Dr. Spielman standing right there the whole time! I never even expected to see you, really, I’ve been so anxious, but I couldn’t keep my mind on anything. I know just what you’re going to say: I tell you to think things through and then don’t give you a minute to yourself! I won’t stay, I promise—I should be in the office right now—but I had to ride by; I don’t know how I’ll wait till this evening!”
I came through the fluster of her talk and rose high on my haunches. She hastened to let me kiss her, begging me to pardon a poor silly woman for being so rattled. Readily enough she responded to my hug, though I was by no means scrubbed and perfumed as I’d been the day before. But she turned a scented dry cheek to my second kiss.
“Bless my soul! And here I thought you’d be peeved at me.”
“Creamie,” I said, coining her a pet-name after the only model I knew: “I want to Be with you.”
She had been thrusting gently away; upon these last words she embraced me again, and could not speak plainly.
“You—dear gracious me. Oh, dear Billy!”
Did she understand my meaning? It seemed so; but to assure myself I told her that I had seen with my own eyes the manner in which human people enjoyed Being, and that I meant to give it a try. “If you’ll let me Be with you anytime I please, I’ll leave the herd.”
“Let you be with me?” She laughed incre
dulously. “What do you think I’ve been praying for all this time? You’ll be with me day and night, dear heart! All I want on this campus is for us to be together!”
The most I’d hoped for was eventual consent, and that only after threats and pleadings. This positive eagerness took me aback; I could scarcely credit it.
“May I Be with you right now?”
“What a strange thing to say! You mean go away this minute? Shan’t we eat lunch here first?”
Her slight uncertainty turned my own into ardent resolve. “No, I mean right now.”
She stood off a pace and cocked her head at me. “Well! If that’s what my young man wants to do, that’s what he shall do. I haven’t even got your room fixed up yet—but I’m ready if you are!”
Her words puzzled me. “What I mean is, let’s Be right here, right now. I promised Max I’d come back at dinnertime and tell him what I’ve decided; we can Be in your house after that.”
She had been going to pick up the basket; now she shook her head in mock annoyance. “Seems to me we aren’t quite communicating!”
I declared stubbornly my intention to Communicate with her as soon as I had learned enough verse to manage it; as for Being, however, that wanted no learning, only love, with which I was already so overmastered that if she wouldn’t let me Be with her I must go Be with the does of the herd, or perish away.
“Goodness!” she said. “We can’t have that, can we?” To my delight she unfolded the blanket which she often brought with the picnic basket; I trembled as she spread it out flat and set herself amply near the center.
“Now, sir, here I sit, and there you stand. What I’ll tell my boss I don’t know, but you can be with me right here on this blanket to your heart’s content!”
Thus plainly invited I scrambled upon her with a grin. I had looked for a sporting resistance, but she let go a cry that shocked me, as did the vigor of her defense. She struck me about the head with her fists; very nearly she wrenched out from under. But I recovered in time to drop my full weight on her, at the same time shielding my face in her plenteous bosom (which I bit at through its linen cover), and Harry-like endeavored with my hand.