Then perhaps Mother will be angry.
No, Mother is never angry. She is sorry; and that is not nice. But then
we must see and make it up to her in another way.
So we slink in and steal the pear.
I put it to him whether, perhaps--when we have eaten the pear--we ought
to tell Mother. But that does not appeal to him:
"Then I shan't get one this evening," he says.
And when I suggest that, possibly, Mother might be impressed with such
audacious candour, he shakes his head decisively:
"You don't know Mother," he says.
So I, of course, have nothing to say.
Shortly after this, the mother of my little boy and I are standing at
the window laughing at the story.
We catch sight of him below, in the courtyard.
He is sitting on the steps with his arm round little Dirty's neck. They
have shared the pear. Now they are both singing, marvellously out of
tune and with a disgustingly sentimental expression on their faces, a
song which Dirty knows:
For riches are only a lo-oan from Heaven
And poverty is a reward.
And we are overcome with a great sense of desolation.
We want to make life green and pleasant for our little boy, to make his
eyes open wide to see it, his hands strong to grasp it. But we feel
powerless in the face of all the contentment and patience and
resignation that are preached from cellar to garret, in church and in
school: all those second-rate virtues, which may lighten an old man's
last few steps as he stumbles on towards the grave, but which are only
so many shabby lies for the young.