I do not know if the masters saw this--it was never
adverted upon--and I did it ruefully enough. The consequence was
that one lived hungrily in the midst of plenty, and food became the
one prepossession of life.
I was a delicate boy in those days, and used often to be sent off
to the sanatorium with bad throats and other ailments. It was a
little, old-fashioned house in Mortlake, and the matron of it had
been an old servant of our own. She was the only person there whom
I regarded with real affection, and to go to the sanatorium was
like heaven. One had a comfortable room, and dear Louisa used to
embrace and kiss me stealthily, provide little treats for me, take
me out walks. I have spent many hours happily in the little walled
garden there, with its big box trees, or gazing from a window into
the street, watching the grocer over the way set out his shop-
window.
Of incidents, tragic or comic, I remember but few. I saw a stupid
boy vigorously caned with a sickening extremity of horror. I
recollect a "school licking" being given to an ill-conditioned boy
for a nasty piece of bullying. The boys ranged themselves down the
big schoolroom, and the culprit had to run the gauntlet. I can see
his ugly, tear-stained face coming slowly along among a shower of
blows. I joined in with a will, I remember, though I hardly knew
what he had done. I remember a few afternoons spent at the houses
of friendly masters; but otherwise it was all a drab starved sort
of level, a life lived by a rule, with no friendships, no
adventures; I marked off the days before the holidays on a little
calendar, simply bent on hiding what I was or thought or felt from
everyone, with a fortitude that was not in the least stoical.
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