It
seemed as though a merciful stupor had dulled my senses to a mute
acceptance of my purgatory. I slept in the train, and arrived home so
sleepy that I was allowed to go straight to bed without comment. For
once my body dominated my mind, and I slipped between the sheets in
an ecstasy of fatigue and fell asleep immediately.
Something of this rare mood lingered with me in the morning, and it
was not until I reached the Meat Market that I realised the extent of
my misfortune. I saw the greasy, red-faced men with their hands and
aprons stained with blood. I saw the hideous carcases of animals, the
masses of entrails, the heaps of repulsive hides; but most clearly of
all I saw an ugly sad little boy with a satchel of books on his back
set down in the midst of an enormous and hostile world. The windows;
and stones of the houses were black with soot, and before me there
lay school, the place that had never brought me anything but sorrow
and humiliation. I went on, but as I slid on the cobbles, my mind
caught an echo of peace, the peace of pine-woods and heather, the
peace of the library at home, and, my body trembling with revulsion,
I leant against a lamp-post, deadly sick. Then I turned on my heels
and walked away from the Meat Market and the school for ever. As I
went I cried, sometimes openly before all men, sometimes furtively
before shop-windows, dabbing my eyes with a wet pocket-handkerchief,
and gasping for breath. I did not care where my feet led me, I would
go back to school no more.
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