But how was I to know? I had let myself come to want her, my
imagination endowed her with infinite possibilities. I wanted her and
wanted her, stupidly and instinctively....
"But," I said "Love--!"
"One has to be sensible," she replied. "I like going about with you.
Can't we keep as we are?'"
VI
Well, you begin to understand my breakdown now, I have been copious
enough with these apologia. My work got more and more spiritless, my
behaviour degenerated, my punctuality declined; I was more and more
outclassed in the steady grind by my fellow-students. Such supplies of
moral energy as I still had at command shaped now in the direction of
serving Marion rather than science.
I fell away dreadfully, more and more I shirked and skulked; the humped
men from the north, the pale men with thin, clenched minds, the intent,
hard-breathing students I found against me, fell at last from keen
rivalry to moral contempt. Even a girl got above me upon one of the
lists. Then indeed I made it a point of honour to show by my public
disregard of every rule that I really did not even pretend to try.
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