There followed moments of bitter sorrow, when I blamed myself
for not taking advantage of my hours of freedom, and I hurried along
the sandy lanes in a desolate effort to enjoy myself before it was
too late.
In spite of the miserable manner in which I spent my days, the
fortnight seemed to pass with extraordinary rapidity. As the end
approached, the people around me made it difficult for me to conceal
my emotions, the grown-ups deducing from my melancholy that I was
tired of holidays and would be glad to get back to school, and my
brother burdening me with idle messages to the other boys-messages
that shattered my hardly formed hope that school did not really
exist. I stood ever on the verge of tears, and I dreaded meal-times,
when I had to leave my solitude, lest some turn of the conversation
should set me weeping before them all, and I should hear once more
what I knew very well myself, that it was a shameful thing for a boy
of my age to cry like a little girl. Yet the tears were there and the
hard lump in my throat, and I could not master them, though I stood
in the woods while the sun set with a splendour that chilled my
heart, and tried to drain my eyes dry of their rebellious, bitter
waters. I would choke over my tea and be rebuked for bad manners.
When the last day came that I had feared most of all, I succeeded in
saying goodbye to the people at the house where I had stopped, and in
making the mournful train journey home without disgracing myself.
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