When I repeated this story to Stoker during my next term in Main Detention, he pointed out with a sneer that the dying man had been as delirious as Kennard Sear, and consequently that his account, whatever it signified, was probably mistaken. The young man in the mesh had been burned beyond recognition; his older classmate, also badly seared, was bandaged as a mummy. One had only his feverish word for both their identities, and Nikolayan administrators, for example, maintained that Classmate Alexandrov had never redefected in the first place, and that Classmate X had been executed many terms earlier for membership in a forbidden ID-cult.
"That's all quite possible," I agreed — but no longer with a smile, as I would have in terms gone by. Anastasia at once took up the cudgels in behalf of Chementinski's and Leonid's Graduation, and so browbeat us both upon that head (her tongue grew wondrous sharper every year), I was as glad to leave the Visitation Room as was Stoker to fetch me to a cell.
My confinement on that occasion had to do with the tenth anniversary of Bray's rout (others called it his Elevation), just as my present one, ending today, had to do with the twelfth of his initial appearance in the Amphitheater. Both times I had been sought out, in my obscurity, by journalism-majors with long memories, who asked whether I still maintained that I was the Grand Tutor; that I knew the "Way to Commencement Gate" (one could hear quotation-marks in their tone); and that Harold Bray, in whom hundreds and thousands believed as against the handful of my own Tutees, had been a flunkèd impostor. Patiently both times I had replied: yes, I was the Grand Tutor, for better or worse, there was no help for it; yes, I knew what studentdom was pleased to call "the Answer," though that term — indeed the whole proposition — was as misleading as any other (and thus as satisfactory), since what I "knew" neither "I" nor anyone could "teach," not even to my own Tutees. As for Bray, I had not called him flunkèd, I declared: his nature and origin were extraordinary and mysterious as my own; all that could be said was that he was my adversary, as necessary to me as Failure is to Passage. I.e., not only contrary and interdependent, but finally undifferentiable.
"You say you're Bray in a way, hey?" the reporter would ask, in the flip idiom of his fraternity. I would say no more, having said too much already; but the interviews, when broadcast, so inflamed the mass of studentdom against me that my loyalest Tutees (including Lucius Rexford) had me detained for my own protection. I was indifferent — Freedom and Bondage being etc. - so long as I might meet with my current advisees in the Visitation Room. But I shall answer no more questions, even from closest protégés. That much is dark is clear. Did Bray really fly away? they ask me. Who or what was he, and will he reappear? (Some of his many followers believe him still on campus, in one or other of his infinite guises; because at the Maxicaust he took my semblance, some — like Grandfather in his dotage — have even alleged that I am he, and it is by exploiting this uncertainty that Lucius Rexford preserves my life.) Was WESCAC really bested, they want to know, or did it plan the whole thing, including its own short-circuiting? Could there have been two or several "Brays," whereof one was a true Grand Tutor, who for that matter might have taken my semblance to rout me in his? If the GILES is WESCAC's son, and a Grand Tutor, is not WESCAC in a sense the Founder? Might being EATen not be equivalent to "becoming as a kindergartener," and hence the Way to Commencement Gate? Perhaps WESCAC doesn't EAT anyone; or if, as Sear conjectured, everyone has been EATen already, might not everyone be a Graduate, even a Grand Tutor? These things they ask in faith, despair, or hecklish taunt; I make no reply.
Three who aspired to Candidacy I denied. Ira Hector for years pretended not to mind, so long as Reginald was a Candidate — their own conclusion. At his brother's death he seemed more concerned; declaring at once that Grand Tutors are humbugs and that I'm holding out on him for a better price, he has determined to outwait me — to outlive me, if necessary. And he shall, Old Man of the Mall; hornier, wrinkleder, and stingier term by term, he will blink and snap there on his bench when I am no more. Rumor has it — perhaps fostered by him — that I owe my survival as much to his covert influence as to Lucky Rexford's. But he can never pass.
Neither, I fear, can Croaker and Dr. Eierkopf, though the latter, following my rout of Harold Bray (whom now Eierkopf vowed he'd called ein Fliehender, not ein Fliegender), declared himself converted by the testimony of his eyes to my "cause." My advice to him was to join Croaker in darkest Frumentius, where together they might accomplish much, despite the imperfections of their partnership. The idea pleased him: certain Frumentian birds, for example, laid eggs the size of a man's head; he might even rewrite his great treatise, once the fracture in his skull had mended. But in the meanwhile, could I not affirm the Candidacy at least of his roommate? What about the passage from the Scrolls, cut into Croaker's gut: Be ye as the beasts of the woods, that never fail?
"They never fail," I replied, "because they're never Candidates." Gently as I could then I denied them, not failing however to thank them for their assistance, without which I could not have passed myself. They went off together to emergent jungle quads and have not since been seen — though I suspect they may be in terms to come.
Two on the other hand to whom I offered affirmation of their Candidacy refused it: Stoker and Lucius Rexford. Of Stoker little need be said: had he not refused me, I should have had to refuse him; denial is his affirmation, and from that contradiction he — indeed, the campus — draws strength. The Chancellor, to be sure, denies this, along with Stoker's imputation of their fraternity. Partly therefore, his image in New Tammany and around the University remains bright, though there are those who maintain that his administration, however brilliant, has accomplished little of practical consequence. The Boundary Dispute continues unresolved, they point out, and the Chancellory has failed to take a clear position on many grave issues — for example, the vexing question of what really happened at Max Spielman's Shafting. Popular opinion supports Bray's authenticity and holds me guilty of Grand-Tutorcide; conservatives want me Shafted; even the liberals, though generally skeptical of Grand-Tutorship and opposed to Shafting, wonder at my never being brought to trial, if only to "clear the air." Having thus alienated both ends of the Tower-Hall spectrum, Rexford finds it harder every term to keep me from the courts and disciplinary committees. His fastidious official neutrality, combined with much tacit support of my hard-oppressed "followers," has given rise to an ominous coalition of far-left and — right. Not that they care in their heart of hearts about Bray or me; but they see in the "Founder's Hill affair" an opportunity to lever Rexford out of office. Already the Senate has extended New Tammany's statute of limitations for "crimes against studentdom," among the number whereof Grand-Tutorcide is specifically included. My release this time may well spring their trap, and I have not forgotten Rexford's smiling words on the day I offered to affirm him.