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.
IV
My growing panic in the face of my imminent return to school spoilt
my holiday, and I watched my brother's careless delight in the Surrey
pine-woods with keen envy. It seemed to me that it was easy for him
to enjoy himself with his month to squander; and in any case he was a
healthy, cheerful boy who liked school well enough when he was there,
though of course he liked holidays better. He had scant patience with
my moods, and secretly I too thought they were wicked. We had been
taught to believe that we alone were responsible for our sins, and it
did not occur to me that the causes of my wickedness might lie beyond
my control. The beauty of the scented pines and the new green of the
bracken took my breath and filled my heart with a joy that changed
immediately to overwhelming grief; for I could not help contrasting
this glorious kind of life with the squalid existence to which I must
return so soon. I realised so fiercely the force of the contrast that
I was afraid to make friends with the pines and admire the palm-like
beauty of the bracken lest I should increase my subsequent anguish;
and I hid myself in dark corners of the woods to fight the growing
sickness of my body with the feeble weapons of my panic-stricken
mind.
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