Dr Sear gave a mild shrug and adjusted his spectacles upon a neat small bandage on the bridge of his nose.
"Never mind," I said thickly. It surprised me a little to hear the girl speak with such crispness of impersonal matters, from my very arms, when desire so filled my own breast, and liquor my head, that I could scarcely make a sound. I was to learn in time that this disconcerting ability was characteristic of her and shared by many of her sisters in female studentdom — whatever her scruples and misgivings, once seized up she made herself as comfortable as if I were her favorite parlor chair.
"Way for the Bride of Enos!" Mrs. Sear called. She snatched a bowl of pretzels from someone and broadcast them like largesse, curtsyed before us, danced from one side of the aisle to the other, and time and again kissed Anastasia's hair or the arms clasped round my neck. "Way for the Bridge and Groom!"
"Honestly!" Anastasia protested. But the extravagance of Mrs. Sear's ushering made her smile. Now the orchestra commenced a processional-piece:
"Oh, listen, George," she said; "they're playing the Alma Mater Dolorosa! I love that hymn." And indeed it was most moving to hear her sweet girl voice against the stately horns:
I reached the dais with tears in my eyes and gently set her upon its edge. The two guards grinned from their stations at the couch's head, where Stoker too came now to meet us.
"All set," he said briskly. "Heddy and Ken will get things ready while you're saying your piece, and we'll press a pedal at the head of the couch when you're finished. Now, do you see that pull-cord, George?" He indicated a black braided rope suspended from the ceiling at the foot of the couch. "When a red light comes on in the tassel it means the cremation's finished and the whistle's ready to blow. You pull it for one long blast."
"No more," Dr. Sear appended with a chuckle, "or they'll think it's an EAT-alarm up on campus."
Too stirred by the music and the solemn prospect to attend him closely, I let him assist me up onto the dais, whereat a comparative hush fell upon the room. From some corner came a half-hearted "Olé," bespeaking in the far dark Croaker; from somewhere else came a shatter of glass, a mild oath, and a woman's short laugh quickly shushed. But I was full of the sight of G. Herrold where he lay, arms folded now. The buckhorn, as ever, was in his hand; one dead eye was wide and the other shut, and his mouth was ajar as if to draw breath for bugling. The orchestra paused (I heard Anastasia behind me saying No, impossible, she'd die of shame even if I were), then wound into a dirge:
The echo of the final chord caught Dr. Sear's voice still pitched loud."… can't be proved," he was asserting; then he went on quickly in an audible whisper: "It's not the kind of thing you reason about, my dear: you believe it or you don't."
Stoker poked me in the side and advised me to "make it short" lest Croaker interrupt the ceremonies. While I pronounced Words of Passage over the body, he declared, he would turn on the closed-circuit Telerama, as was his wont at the end of a Spring-Carnival party, so that the assemblage could watch the Sunrise Service on Founder's Hill, and the first rays of morning strike Tower Clock.
I nodded shortly, almost angrily, neither knowing nor caring what closed-circuit Telerama might be. My eyes were strong with tears now, and I was obliged to clutch G. Herrold's fleece, as well as lean upon my stick for support. A long and desolating day had been this first of my Grand-Tutorhood, whose dawn seemed ages past! Stunned with liquor and fatigue, I leaned on my friend for the last time and felt to the full his responsibility for my life, and mine for his death. Now I resented Croaker and Stoker and Anastasia too, the chance encounter in George's Gorge and its fatal issue — which was to say, at last I was appalled by the monstrous ease of my seduction, my heartless casting-off of Max, my forswearing of every bond and precept to carouse at my savior's bier and lust for the tart who had brought him to it. Late in the day, late in the day, to come to mourning!
"Omniscient Founder," I began — but no words followed. I was not used to invoking that name; in truth I'd never before addressed Him or much pondered who He was, beyond imagining Him a kind of super-Max — which kidly image no more served. The guards growled. Those guests nearby who had paused to hear me shuffled and turned. Suddenly I perspired all over; my insides sank. At the same moment when I reached to take the shophar from G. Herrold, a guard tramped down on something with his booted foot: instantly the cushions parted, swinging down like double trap-doors into the bier itself, which was revealed to be a chute. G. Herrold folded in the middle and slid into the searing air that blasted up; for part of a second his fingers gripped the shophar still, and pulled me after; I jerked back, blinded and terrified, and the horn came free. One thump I heard, far down in the awful drop, before the cushions sprang into place with a click. The crowd-noise welled. I believed I would go mad. I raised the shophar and blew blind honks, horn-rips that I wished would burst my head.
"Olé!" they cried behind.
As if responding to my note the horns or the orchestra began a grand chorale, its measured chords resounding in all my nerves. Anastasia was before me, led onto the dais by the Sears; we regarded each other with brimming eyes. Mrs. Sear hugged my arm and declared, "Well, I believe in him." Her tone was petulant, as if to scold Anastasia. "I think he's cute."
"We've almost got you a convert," Dr. Sear said lightly. "I told her that belief has to come before believability, but it must not sound convincing when I say it."
I shook off their hands. The horns took up my pain and gave it back in gold sonorities. Imperious, austere, nobly suffering, they spoke both to and for me. Even as I slipped the shophar's lanyard over my head, a red bulb lighted in the tassel of the pull-cord.
"Ready!" cried one of the guards.
But now the floodlights dimmed and the waiting party murmured as on the far wall a great screen glowed, blinked hugely, and focused into a picture: a single shaft, like a stark stone finger, pointed against a pale gray sky; winding towards it up a dark slope in the foreground was a procession of flickering lights, and from the column-top itself a larger flame roared. A new sound burst into the room, as it seemed from all directions, blending with and mounting over the splendid brass.
"That's the dawn-service upstairs on the Hill," Dr. Sear remarked for my benefit. "Big ceremony for the new spring registrants. They run the organ on natural steam from down here and use the tunnels for resonance. Superb bass response."
Anastasia moved to me in the dim light, stirred no doubt as I was by the sound and spectacle. "Your poor friend," she said.
I could not find my voice. Mrs. Sear drew us closer.
"That's the place where Enos Enoch passed on," Anastasia said, referring to the hilltop. "For all studentdom."
I shook my head. "Only for the kids who believed in Him."
"Come on," Mrs. Sear insisted, reaching as if to unbelt Anastasia's robe. The girl pressed against me to forestall her, and we found ourselves kissing — stiffly, then not so. Abruptly she turned her face away.
"I want to believe you!" she said, much distressed. "I almost can!"
From behind me somewhere Stoker instructed me that the whistle was ready when I was, and bade me not delay. "Take her to the couch, Heddy," he said.