breast, look down on him with measureless contempt. When, fifteen years later, Irving, at the Garrick Club one night after supper asked me what I thought of this new «business,» I replied that if Shylock had done what he did, Gratiano would probably have spat in his face and then kicked him off the stage. Shylock complains that the Christians spat upon his gaberdine. My boyish, romantic reading of the part, however, was essentially the same as Irving's, and Irving's reading was cheered in London to the echo because it was a rehabilitation of the Jew; and the Jew rules the roost today in all the cities of Europe. At my first words I could feel the younger members of the audience look about as if to see if such reciting as mine was proper and permitted, then one after the other gave in to the flow and flood of passion. When I had finished everyone cheered, Whalley and Lady W… enthusiastically, and to my delight, Lucille as well. After the rehearsal, everyone crowded about me. «Where did you learn?» «Who taught you?» At length Lucille came. «I knew you were someone,» she said in her pretty way (quelqu'un), «but it was extraordinary! You'll be a great actor, I'm sure.» «And yet you deny me a kiss,» I whispered, taking care no one should hear. «I deny you nothing,» she replied, turning away, leaving me transfixed with hope and assurance of delight. «Nothing,» I said to myself, «nothing means everything»; a thousand times I said it over to myself in an ecstasy.
That was my first happy night in England. Mr. Whalley congratulated me and introduced me to his daughter, who praised me enthusiastically, and best of all, the Doctor said, «We must make you stage manager, Harris, and I hope you'll put some of your fire into the other actors.» To my astonishment my triumph did me harm with the boys. Some sneered, while all agreed that I did it to show off.
Jones and the sixth began the boycott again. I didn't mind much, for I had heavier disappointments and dearer hopes. The worst was I found it difficult to see Lucille in the bad weather; indeed, I hardly caught a glimpse of her the whole winter. Edwards asked me frequently to the vicarage; she might have made half a dozen meetings but she would not, and I was sick at heart with disappointment and the regret of unfulfilled desire. It was March or April before I was alone with her in her schoolroom at the vicarage. I was too cross with her to be more than polite. Suddenly she said: «Vous me boudez» I shrugged my shoulders. «You don't like me,» I began, «so what's the use of my caring?» «I like you a great deal,» she said, «but-» «No, no,» I said, shaking my head. «If you really liked me, you wouldn't avoid me and-» «Perhaps it's because I like you too much-»
«Then you'd make me happy,» I broke in. «Happy,» she repeated. «How can I?» «By letting me kiss you, and-» «Yes, and-» she repeated significantly. «What harm does it do you?» I asked. «What harm?» she repeated. «Don't you know it's wrong? One should only do that with one's husband; you know that.» «I don't know anything of the sort,» I cried. «That's silly. We don't believe that today.» «I believe it,» she said gravely. «But if you didn't, you'd let me?» I cried. «Say that, Lucille. That would be almost as good, for it would show you liked me a little.» «You know I like you a great deal,» she replied. «Kiss me then,» I said. «There's no harm in that.» And when she kissed me I put my hand over her breasts; they thrilled me, they were so elastic-firm; and in a moment my hand slid down her body, but she drew away at once, quietly but with resolve. «No, no,» she said, half smiling.
«Please,» I begged. «I can't,» she said, shaking her head.
«I mustn't. Let us talk of other things. How is the play getting on?»
But I could not talk of the play as she stood there before me. For the first time I divined through her clothes nearly all the beauties of her form. The bold curves of hip and breast tantalized me and her face was expressive and defiant. How was it I had never noticed all the details before? Had I been blind? Or did Lucille dress to show off her figure? Certainly her dresses were arranged to display the form more than English dresses, but I too had become more curious, more observant. Would life go on showing me new beauties I had not even imagined? My experience with E… and Lucille made the routine of school life almost intolerable to me. I could only force myself to study by reminding myself of the necessity of winning the second prize in the mathematical scholarship, which would give me ten pounds and ten pounds would take me to America. Soon after the Christmas holidays I had taken the decisive step. The examination in winter was not nearly so important as the one that ended the summer term, but it had been epoch-making to me. My punishments having compelled me to learn two or three books of Vergil by heart and whole chapters of Caesar and Livy, I had come to some knowledge of Latin: in the examination I had beaten not only all my class, but thanks to trigonometry and Latin and history, all the two next classes as well.
As soon as the school reassembled I was put in the upper fifth. All the boys were from two to three years older than I was, and they all made cutting remarks about me to each other and avoided speaking to «Pat.» All this strengthened my resolution to get to America as soon as I could. Meanwhile I worked as I had never worked, at Latin and Greek as well as mathematics, but chiefly at Greek, for there I was backward: by Easter I had mastered the grammar-irregular verbs and all-and was about the first in the class. My mind, too, through my religious doubts and gropings and through the reading of the thinkers had grown astonishingly: one morning I construed a piece of Latin that had puzzled the best in the class and the Doctor nodded at me approvingly. Then came the step I spoke of as decisive. The morning prayers were hardly over one bitter morning when the Doctor rose and gave out the terms of the scholarship exam at midsummer, the winner to get eighty pounds a year for three years at Cambridge, and the second ten pounds with which to buy books. «All boys,» he added,
«who wish to go in for this scholarship will now stand up and give their names.» I thought only Gordon would stand up, but when I saw Johnson get up and Fawcett and two or three others, I too got up. A sort of derisive growl went through the school; but Stackpole smiled at me and nodded his head as much as to say, «They'll see,» and I took heart of grace and gave my name very distinctly. Somehow I felt that the step was decisive. I liked Stackpole and this term he encouraged me to come to his rooms to talk whenever I felt inclined, and as I had made up my mind to use all the half-holidays for study, this association did me a lot of good and his help was invaluable.
One day when he had just come into his room, I shot a question at him and he stopped, came over to me and put his arm on my shoulder as he answered. I don't know how I knew; but by some instinct I felt a caress in the apparently innocent action. I didn't like to draw away or show him I objected; but I buried myself feverishly in the trigonometry and he soon moved away. When I thought of it afterwards I recalled the fact that his marked liking for me began after my fight with Jones. I had often been on the point of confessing to him my love- passages; but now I was glad I had kept them strenuously to myself, for day by day I noticed that his liking for me grew, or rather his compliments and flatteries increased. I hardly knew what to do: working with him and in his room was a godsend to me; yet at the same time I didn't like him much or admire him really.
In some ways he was curiously dense. He spoke of the school life as the happiest of all and the healthiest; a good moral tone here, he would say, no lying, cheating or scandal, much better than life outside. I used to find it difficult not to laugh in his face. Moral tone indeed! When the Doctor came down out of temper, it was usually accepted among the boys that he had had his wife in the night and was therefore a little below par physically. Though a really good mathematical scholar and a first rate teacher, patient and painstaking, with a gift of clear exposition, Stackpole seemed to me stupid and hidebound and soon I found that by laughing at his compliments, I could balk his desire to lavish on me his unwelcome caresses. Once he kissed me but my amused smile made him blush while he muttered shamefacedly, «You're a queer lad!» At the same time I knew quite well that if I encouraged him, he would take further liberties. One day he talked of Jones and Henry H… He had evidently heard something of what had taken place in our bedroom; but I pretended not to know what he meant and when he asked me whether none of the big boys had made up to me, I ignored big Fawcett's smutty excursions and said, «No,» adding that I was interested in girls and not in dirty boys. For some reason or other Stackpole seemed to me younger than I was and not twelve years older, and I had no real difficulty in keeping him within the bounds of propriety till the math exam. I was asked once whether I thought that «Shaddy,» as we called the housemaster, had ever had a woman. The idea of «Shaddy» as a virgin filled us with laughter; but when one spoke of him as a lover, it was funnier still. He was a man about forty, tall and fairly strong: he had a degree from some college in Manchester, but to us little snobs he was a bounder because he had not been to either Oxford or Cambridge. He was fairly capable, however. But for some reason or other he had a down on me and I grew to hate him and was always thinking of how I might hurt him. My new habit of forcing myself to watch and observe everything came to my aid. There were five or six polished oak steps up to the big bedroom where fourteen of us slept.
«Shaddy» used to give us half an hour to get into bed and then would come up, and standing just inside the door under the gaslight would ask us, «Have you all said your prayers?» We all answered: «Yes, Sir»; then would come his, «Goodnight, boys,» and our stereotyped reply,
«Goodnight, Sir.» He would then turn out the light and go downstairs to his room. The oak steps outside were worn in the middle and I had noticed that as one goes downstairs one treads on the very edge of each step.
