This exultation was so intimately related to Fredrika that I felt she was by my side.
I had walked on with no sense of direction until I had to stop in order to discover my surroundings. I stood in the middle of a winding path and, facing me, was a sloping field with a stile a few yards to the right. I decided to climb this stile, but, on reaching it, I paused to gaze at a meadow ablaze with dandelion.
I stood motionless for some minutes.
The majesty of morning was now supreme. This might have been the first day of creation—the first shy unveiling of the world.
Just as I was about to climb the stile, I looked to the left. Near a hedge, were a man and a woman—in physical intimacy.
I do not know how long I remained motionless. All I know is that revulsion circled me like stinking stagnant water. A sense of degradation, of outrage, petrified me. Something died in me—and something was born. Instinctively, I knew that I had ceased to be whole—that, henceforth, I should be divided. . . .
If you cannot imagine the effect of this experience—and the long-term effect of it—on a sensitive wholly innocent boy, do not read another word. It would be a waste of time.
Three days later.
It had rained heavily since dawn and, at four o’clock, it was still raining, but I scarcely noticed it. For the last few days I had left my room only for meals and had no interest whatsoever in the world outside.
Soon after four o’clock, the door was thrown open and Hilda appeared.
“What on earth’s the matter with you? Shutting yourself up here, hour after hour! Are you ill?”
“I’m not ill.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Leave me alone.”
She looked at me intently for some moments, then said:
“It’s a shame about you. It is, straight! Nothing to do but moon about by yourself! Why don’t they send you to school, instead of going on with that old stick of a tutor? You ought to mix with boys of your own age.”
“I don’t want anything.”
There was a long silence, then she asked:
“Do you still wonder about the people who used to live in that empty house?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you about them. It will give you something to think about—and that’s better than doing nothing but mope up here for hours on end. But don’t you tell any one I’ve told you.”
“I shan’t tell any one.”
“Mind you don’t! Anyhow, you’re sure to find out sooner or later, so I may as well tell you.”
After a pause, she went on:
“This is what happened. The year you were born, a family was living in that house—a man and his wife and two children. A boy and a girl. About eight, they were. You never saw such a happy family. The mother was lovely, and the children were admired for miles round.”
She looked sideways, as if to make certain we were alone, then went on:
“Well, suddenly, the father was ruined—ruined in a day, as you might say. He came home—shot his wife—shot the children—then shot himself.”
Almost immediately, she added:
“The next morning, the milkman discovered what had happened. He ran to Dr. Gandy, who went with him to the house. So now you know why no one will live there. And—what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing! You’re white as a sheet! I only told you because——”
“I’m going out.”
“What on earth for? You’ll get wet through.”
“I don’t care.”
It had stopped raining, but great drops fell from drenched trees. I burned on, noticing nothing, till I reached the rusty gates.
Everything was dank, shrouded.
Although my hands trembled, I opened the gates, then walked slowly down the nettle-covered drive. With every step, terror increased. I dared not look back, because I was certain that phantoms followed me. At last I stood in the porch, facing the tentacled creeper.
Then I knelt and prayed—as I had never prayed.
And then I cried—as I had never cried.
That was how childhood ended, like the descent of a curtain un a sunlit scene.
I went to a public school when I was twelve and the first result of leaving home and finding myself with companions of my own age was that I began to see my parents in more realistic perspective and recognised, therefore, how isolated they were from the everyday world. Nothing revealed the nature of this isolation more pathetically than the fact that their frustrated ambitions found vicarious satisfaction in anticipating the brilliant career which, they were convinced, awaited me as an artist. Anyhow, a few weeks at school made it very clear that I had never had a home in the customary sense of the word, and that my childhood had been an extremely lonely one.
But I made many discoveries during my first term, because companionship with boys of my own age provided a standard which enabled me to compare my experiences with those of others, and this soon revealed the extent to which I had lived in a world remote from the actual one. So remote, that I was a stranger among normal human beings—and likely to remain a stranger. It became very evident that, although I was popular with other boys, they regarded me as odd in many ways—especially my “shyness” regarding sex.
In those days, there was no sex instruction either at home or at school, with the result that information was picked up in the gutter of bawdy jokes and obscene stories. My companions soon noticed that these embarrassed and humiliated me, consequently I became the chief target for them. This gutter-initiation, into the details of sex had two main effects: it deepened the revulsion I had felt on that Whit-Monday; and it associated sex more and more intimately with disgust and degradation.
During my third term, however, an event occurred which astonished others, nearly as much as it astonished me, and which gave me an entirely new status with boys of my own age.
This event was a sudden friendship with Ronald Bayes—a first-class athlete and the head of the school. As Bayes was also wellborn, remarkable in appearance, and universally idolised, it follows that he inhabited a realm far removed from my obscurity. Incidentally, Bayes was one of those rare beings who not only seem predestined to eminence, but are genuinely unaware of the superiority which makes eminence inevitable.
No one in the school knew that I was an artist and, although I did many drawings during my leisure, I hid them with the care and the cunning of a miser. This was not through fear of criticism but through habit. As a child, my deepest experiences had been unshared: I had told no one about Fredrika, with the solitary exception of Dr. Gandy; and I had told no one of the revulsion endured on that Whit-Monday—consequently it had become automatic to hide my deepest experiences and activities from others.
One day, during my third term, Bayes came to the Lower School to talk to us about something or other, but what it was I have no idea because I did not listen to one word. I was at a desk in the front, somewhat apart from the others, and, directly Bayes began to speak, I suddenly “saw” him as I had never seen him. Time, place, circumstances were instantly forgotten and I began to draw this new Bayes who had emerged so miraculously from the familiar one.
As the others were listening intently, my activities were unnoticed, and would have remained unnoticed if my absorption had not been so complete that I went on with the drawing after the lecture had ended and the audience had trooped out into the playground.
“Hallo! What have you got there?”