This speedy end to my
apparent wealth certainly made it easier for the boys to find
out that I was not one of themselves, and they began to look at
me askance and leave me out of their conversations. I was made
to feel once more that I had been born under a malignant star
that did not allow me to speak or act as they did. I had not
their common sense, their blunt cheerfulness, their complete
lack of sensibility, and while they resented my queerness they
could not know how anxious I was to be an ordinary boy. When I
saw that they mistrusted me I was too proud to accept the crumbs
of their society like poor mother F----, and I withdrew myself into
a solitude that gave me far too much time in which to examine my
emotions. I found out all the remote corners of the school in
which it was possible to be alone, and when the other boys went
for walks in the fields, I stayed in the churchyard close to the
school, disturbing the sheep in their meditations among the
tomb-stones, and thinking what a long time it would be before I
was old enough to die.
Now that the first freshness of my new environment had worn off, I
was able to see my life as a series of grey pictures that repeated
themselves day by day. In my mind these pictures were marked off
from each other by a sound of bells. I woke in the morning in a bed
that was like all the other beds, and lay on my back listening to
the soft noises of sleep that filled the air with rumours of healthy
boys.
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