Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

right,” Mickelsson said. “Yes, I remember now. I was saying I may not know what I do when I teach. It’s obvious that teaching should be thoroughly rational—” He glanced at Nugent to see that he was listening, not brooding on miseries of his own. “But Nietzsche’s not convinced—in certain moods, at least—that we’re at our best at our most rational.” He raised his hand, blocking objection. “Let me explain. Think about bodily functions. Imagine what it would be like if we had to be aware of the breakdown of fats”—he glanced again at Nugent, asserting his professorial authority—“that is, imagine how it would be if digestion was something we had to do. Consciousness, Nietzsche would say, has nothing much to do with what’s most efficient in the working of the body. The question, he’d say, is why consciousness is needed at all. Nietzsche acknowledges the phenomenon of consciousness and supposes it developed—‘fortunately’—only late in the evolution of the human species. In other words, he thinks we’re often better off without it—playing it by ear, as they say. That’s not the whole story. It doesn’t account for his idea of the ‘true hero’—the poet, philosopher, or saint.”

They’d come to the library-building doors. Mickelsson held back, letting Nugent enter first. Nugent held back, too, unsure of the rules, then hastily stepped forward. When they were inside, Mickelsson looked around at the door, making sure it was automatically closing, then moved on.

He said, “He was a German, of course, and the son of a Lutheran minister, which put him in a good position to see how troublesome strict rationality can be. Still, there’s something to be said for his uneasiness. He has an interesting remark on human language. ‘In general,’ he says”—Mickelsson slowed his walk again, smiling his fixed smile, and put the back of his right fist to his forehead, striving to get it right, though he’d quoted it a thousand times—“ ‘in general, whenever primitive man laid down a word, there he believed himself to have made a discovery. How different it really was! He had hit upon a problem, and thinking he’d solved it’—it goes something like this; I’m afraid I’m paraphrasing slightly—‘thinking he’d solved it, he in fact only raised an obstacle to its solution. And now,’ Nietzsche says—something like this—‘now, with every piece of knowledge, one must stumble over stone-hard, everlasting words—and one would rather break a bone than a word.’ ”

They’d come to the first floor men’s room. Mickelsson stopped. “I need to go in here,” he said, and pushed the door open. Nugent nodded and followed. Mickelsson braced up against the urinal, Nugent at his back, and said, “Nietzsche’s whole philosophy—like modern positivism, and ultimately like nominalism—is based on a deep concern with language. The idea that if you can understand me, I must not be saying much.” With his stream he wrote “P J M” on the cracked white wall of the urinal.

“Well,” he said, “it’s true, I’m a little lax in class. I’m glad to hear my students thinking about anything at all.” He shook his penis, then put it back inside his pants and zipped his fly.

“I suppose I’d have to admit,” he said, “I’m not very comfortable with undergraduates. ‘Certitude is weakness,’ this same Nietzsche says. In undergraduate classes one of the main things we do is offer an illusion of certitude.” He smiled, almost nasty. “It helps the F.T.E.”

“I thought that was what you were doing,” Nugent said.

Back in his office, Mickelsson partly closed the door, leaving it only an inch or two ajar since Jessica would be coming, she’d said; then he went directly to his desk, where he rummaged through the drawers until he located his Susquehanna-Montrose phone book, found the number, and dialed the Susquehanna Hospital. Over the hills outside his window a gray wash of cloud had moved in, making the trees along the ridges and the weedy fields below more drab and dingy than they’d been earlier this morning—sickly, in fact, as if infected, mile after mile, with mange. The phone rang six times, seven times, eight. … He rechecked the number, thinking it impossible that a phone could go so long ignored in a hospital; but there was no mistake. He waited on, and at last a friendly, middle-aged female voice said, “Seskehenna Hospital, Hennessy speaking.”

“Hello,” Mickelsson said. Just then his office door swung open and Jessica came in. When she saw that he was phoning, she signalled him to go on, she’d wait outside, and started to leave, then paused as he waved her toward one of the chairs he had for conferences with students, gave him an inquiring look, then settled gracefully though perhaps not entirely at home there in Mickelsson’s learner’s seat, crossed her legs at the knees, and cupped the upper knee in both hands. Mickelsson was saying into the phone, meanwhile, “Hello. This is Professor Mickelsson out on Riverview Road. I wonder if I could talk to Dr. Bauer.”

“Dr. Bauer?” the voice said. “We haven’t gaht a Dr. Bauer anymore. We used to, but—”

“I know she’s not with you anymore,” Mickelsson said, “but I understand she was planning to drop by today. I’m the man who bought her house from her.” He laughed, vaguely like an old friend. “If I could just get in touch with her—if there were someone there who would be likely to know—”

“Just a minute, Prafessor.” Blips and buzzes hit his ear, then a husky male voice said with practiced haste and distraction, “Benton.”

Now the other voice, the woman’s, sounded miles away. “Dr. Benton, the prafessor that bought Dr. Bauer’s howse is on the line. He’s trying to locate Dr. Bauer?”

“All right, I’ll talk to him,” Benton said. Then, loudly, as if he distrusted phone-wire, “Hello?”

“Hello, Doctor,” Mickelsson began.

Before he could say more, Dr. Benton called out, “Far as I know Dr. Bauer’s down in Florida. If she wasn’t, I feel pretty sure she’d’ve rung me. We used to be partners here. Is it something