The President holds a conference on the Wings of Misery that are sweeping through the corridors of the University. She holds a conference on the feasi bi?ty of the Balloon Classroom. Her deans sway with her words Uke poplars in a November wind heralding the first hard snow. She holds a conference on the Maintenance of the Mysterium, rumors about which have been gUding of late through the halls of the Towers and haunting us with their scent of crushed ants and pine gum. She holds a conference on

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... conferences held in foreign capitals and wonders aloud if she should not travel to one or more of these foreign universities to enhance her knowledge of their inner workings. The President laughs to herself at night deep in her cups. She laughs to herself in her office, at the podium that has special gadgets built in it for her alone, gadgets that allow her to monitor the wakefulness of the audience, one by one. In her refrigerator are seven bottles of Frascati. Each day her refrig erator is replenished without her even having to ask. The President fires her secretary, hires her again, fires her again, hires her again. Good secretaries are hard to come by, she notes in her presidential notebook. The President is the first woman President at a university in her country. She takes note of this fact, but she bears it as Uttle importance as she can muster. She is a bootstrap sort of woman. She got here on her own. She had no help from her coUeagues. That is certainly the case. Her colleagues are basically worms. They fear her. And well they should. She is, after all, the President. She ran on a platform of fear and retribution, and was elected by a wide margin, an astonishing one, in fact, though the second election was close, too close; she had to make some changes; she made them, and her betrayers were sorry. Still, dissent is healthy for any system. Often she tests the system by announcing meetings at midnight. The deans come stumbUng in in their nightclothes, their dressing gowns, their night caps. They are a motley group.