Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [12]
Today his excuse for doing this was not a class to teach but the “private conversation” he had just been invited to in the Dean’s Office, by way of a none too polite letter, which we would gladly have shared with the reader if it were not at this very moment sulkily crumpled at the bottom of the wastepaper basket. Gabriel was fed up with people wanting to discuss things with him, and it was only when he deemed himself sufficiently sharpened that he could bear getting up and going down to the meeting.
The corridors looked their bleak mid-February selves, with a few stray students gliding about like ghosts and shadows against the dying daylight pouring from the arched windows at each extremity. There had always been, since his own student days at Doges, a light aura of unreality about this place, or maybe about himself, he reflected, sniffing and checking that his nose was not running too much.
Gibiser, who occupied the honourable and much-coveted position of Dean of Doges, was a white-haired but healthy man, with a sympathetic surface and tolerably murky depths, the kind who would pat you on the back to choose the best spot to stab you. But today, he was not even that cheerful when Gabriel sat before him in his large first-floor office with its view of the mock Parthenon and the—ridiculous—miniature Rialto bridge that marked the entrance to the Campus.
“I am glad to see you here,” Gibiser said.
“I work here,” answered Gabriel with typical snowcaine poise, though he knew that Gibiser was a bit challenged when it came to grasping other senses of humour than his own—Gabriel’s especially, peculiar as it was, often proved a tough nut to crack.
“Oh, I know that very well,” Gibiser said darkly. “Listen, Professor d’Allier, I am going to do for you something I should not do, which is to disclose private correspondence from a third party. If I do so, it is only because I hope it will do more good than ill for the community.”
He handed Gabriel a letter, which Gabriel read with growing disgust, while barely suppressing his sniffles and hoping those that escaped could pass as sniffs of contempt.
“Dear Colleague and Dean,
I wish to speak to you about a Masters student called Phoebe O’Farrell.
This student has taken my class “The Pen and the Plough: The Peasant as Poet, the Poet as Peasant” this semester, and her paper on “John Clare’s Use of the Word ‘Croodle’ ” was of a very high level and by far the best I have read for this course. I have nothing more to add on this matter.
She had chosen at the beginning of the term to write a dissertation under the guidance of our colleague Mr. Allier titled “Stoned Landscapes: Laudanhomes & Hashishtecture in Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ and Baudelaire’s ‘Rêve Parisien’ ” (sic). For reasons that she may or may not wish to explain to you (it is her own decision), she would like to ask you if it would be possible that this dissertation now be supervised by myself.
I fully support this request and I think it would be better for all if you and Allier would agree on this point, as she is currently undergoing certain difficulties in her work where I could be of great help.
She is one of my best students, and I hope you will give her your most benevolent attention.
Cordially Yours,
Prof. Albert Corkring
Full-Fledged Fellow
House of Humanities
Doges College
“What am I supposed to do with this rag,” asked Gabriel, his voice as icy as the tip of his nose. “Propose it as a commentary in a poetry class?”
He could see that Gibiser was embarrassed. But he could also see, his own brain a dazzling crystal ball, that it was more over being involved in such an imbroglio than for Gabriel’s sake.
“Do not get carried away, Mr. d’Allier. I’m saying this in your best interest. And please, rather, tell me if you have any idea what these … allusions might refer to?”
Gabriel could see very