There followed for me a period of deep and unbroken
satisfaction. I was soon considered well enough to get up, and I
lived pleasantly between the sofa and the fireside waiting on my
brother's convalescence, for it had been settled that I should
go away with him to the country for a change of air. I read
Dickens and Dumas in English, and made up long stories in which
I myself played important but not always heroic parts. By means
of intellectual exercises of this kind I achieved a tranquillity
like that of an old man, fearing nothing, desiring nothing,
regretting nothing. I no longer reckoned the days or the hours,
I content to enjoy a passionless condition of being that asked
no questions and sought none of me, nor did I trouble to number
my journeys in the world of infinite shadows. But in that long
hour of peace I realised that in some inexplicable way I was
interested in the body of a little boy, whose hands obeyed my
unspoken wishes, whose legs sprawled before me on the sofa. I
knew that before I met him, this boy, whose littleness surprised
me, had suffered ill dreams in a nameless world, and now, worn
out with tears and humiliation and dread of life, he slept, and
while he slept I watched him dispassionately, as I would have
looked at a crippled daddy-long-legs. To have felt compassion
for him would have disturbed the tranquillity that was a
necessary condition of my existence, so I contented myself with
noticing his presence and giving him a small part in the pageant
of my dreams. He was not so beautiful as I wished all my
comrades to be, and he was besides very small; but shadows are
amiable play-friends, and they did not blame him because he
cried when he was teased and did not cry when he was beaten, or
because the wild unreason of his sorrow made him find cause for
tears in the very fullness of his rare enjoyment. For the first
time in my life it seems to me I saw this little boy as he was,
squat-bodied, big-headed, thick-lipped, and with a face swept
clean of all emotions save where his two great eyes glowed with
a sulky fire under exaggerated eyebrows. I noticed his grimy
nails, his soiled collar, his unbrushed clothes, the patent
signs of defeat changing to utter rout, and from the heights of
my great peace I was not sorry for him. He was like that, other
boys were different, that was all.
And then on a day fear returned to my heart, and my newly discovered
Utopia was no more. I do not know what chance word of the grown-up
people or what random thought of mine did the mischief; but of a
sudden I realised that for all my dreaming I was only separated by a
measurable number of days from the horror of school. Already I was
sick with fear, and in place of my dreams I distressed myself by
visualising the scenes of the life I dreaded--the Meat Market, the
dusty shadows of the gymnasium, the sombre reticence of the great
hall. All that my lost tranquillity had given me was a keener sense
of my own being; my smallness, my ugliness, my helplessness in the
face of the great cruel world. Before I had sometimes been able to
dull my emotions in unpleasant circumstances and thus achieve a
dogged calm; now I was horribly conscious of my physical sensations,
and, above all, of that deadly sinking in my stomach called fear. I
clenched my hands, telling myself that I was happy, and trying to
force my mind to pleasant thoughts; but though my head swam with the
effort, I continued to be conscious that I was afraid. In the midst
of my mental struggles I discovered that even if I succeeded in
thinking happy things I should still have to go back to school after
all, and the knowledge that thought could not avert calamity was
like a bruise on my mind. I pinched my arms and legs, with the idea
that immediate pain would make me forget my fears for the future;
but I was not brave enough to pinch them really hard, and I could
not forget the motive for my action. I lay back on the sofa and
kicked the cushions with my feet in a kind of forlorn anger. Thought
was no use, nothing was any use, and my stomach was sick, sick with
fear. And suddenly I became aware of an immense fatigue that
overwhelmed my mind and my body, and made me feel as helpless as a
little child. The tears that were always near my eyes streamed down
my face, making my cheek sore against the wet cushion, and my breath
came in painful, ridiculous gulps. For a moment I made an effort to
control my grief; and then I gave way utterly, crying with my whole
body like a little child, until, like a little child, I fell asleep.
When I awoke the room was grey with dusk, and I sat up with a
swaying head, glad to hide the shame of my foolish swollen face
amongst the shadows. My mouth was still salt with tears, and I was
very thirsty, but I was always anxious to hide my weakness from
other people, and I was afraid that if I asked for something to
drink they would see that I had been crying. The fire had gone out
while I slept, and I felt cold and stiff, but my abandonment of
restraint had relieved me, and my fear was now no more than a vague
unrest. My mind thought slowly but very clearly. I saw that it was a
pity that I had not been more ill than I was, for then, like my
brother, I should have gone away for a month instead of a fortnight.
As it was, everybody laughed at me because I looked so well, and
said they did not believe that I had been ill at all. If I had
thought of it earlier I might have been able to make myself worse
somehow or other, but now it was too late. When the maid came in and
lit the gas for tea she blamed me for letting the fire out, and told
me that I had a dirty face. I was glad of the chance to slip away
and wash my burning cheeks in cold water. When I had finished and
dried my face on the rough towel I looked at myself in the glass. I
looked as if I had been to the seaside for a holiday, my cheeks were
so red!
That night as I lay sleepless in my bed, seeking for a cool place
between the sheets in which to rest my hot feet, the sickness of fear
returned to me, and I knew that I was lost. I shut my eyes tightly,
but I could not shut out the vivid pictures of school life that my
memory had stored up for my torment; I beat my head against the
pillow, but I could not change my thoughts. I recalled all the
possible events that might interfere with my return to school, a new
illness, a railway accident, even suicide, but my reason would not
accept these romantic issues. I was helpless before my destiny, and
my destiny made me I afraid.
And then, perhaps I was half asleep or fond with fear, I leapt out of
bed and stood in the middle of the room to meet life and fight it.
The hem of my nightshirt tickled my shin and my feet grew cold on the
carpet; but though I stood ready with my fists clenched I could see
no adversary among the friendly shadows, I could hear no sound but
the I drumming of the blood against the walls of my head. I got back
into bed and pulled the bedclothes about my chilled body. It seemed
that life would not fight fair, and being only a little boy and not
wise like the grown-up people, I could find no way in which to outwit
it.