A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School

35from just feelings. And this feeling doesn't make any sense. It was a crazy idea, I must havebeen delirious. So I just have to forget it. I just fell," he turned away to grope for somethingamong the pillows, "that's all." Then he glanced back at me, Tm sorry about that feeling I had."I couldn't say anything to this sincere, drugged apology for having suspected the truth. Hewas never going to accuse me. It was only a feeling he had, and at this moment he must havebeen formulating a new commandment in his personal decalogue. Never accuse a friend of acrime if you only have a feeling he did it.And I thought we were competitors! It was so ludicrous I wanted to cry.If Phineas had been sitting here in this pool of guilt, how would he have felt, what would hehave done?He would have told me the truth.I got up so suddenly that the chair overturned. I stared at him in amazement, and he staredback, his mouth breaking into a grin as the moments passed. "Well," he said at last in hisfriendly knowing voice, "what are you going to do, hypnotize me?""Finny, I've got something to tell you. You're going to hate it, but there's something I've gotto tell you.""My God, what energy," he said, falling back against the pillows. "You sound like GeneralMacArthur.""I don't care who I sound like, and you won't think so when I tell you. This is the worstthing in the world, and I'm sorry and I hate to tell you but I've got to tell you."But I didn't tell him. Dr. Stanpole came in before I was able to, and then a nurse came in,and I was sent away. The next day the doctor decided that Finny was not yet well enough to seevisitors, even old pals like me. Soon after he was taken in an ambulance to his home outsideBoston.The Summer Session closed, officially came to an end. But to me it seemed irresolutelysuspended, halted strangely before its time. I went south for a month's vacation in my hometown and spent it in an atmosphere of reverie and unreality, as though I had lived that monthonce already and had not been interested by it the first time either.At the end of September I started back toward Devon on the jammed, erratic trains ofSeptember, 1942. I reached Boston seventeen hours behind schedule; there would be prestigein that at Devon, where those of us from long distances with travel adventures to report orinvent held the floor for several days after a vacation.By luck I got a taxi at South Station, and instead of saying "North Station" to the driver,instead of just crossing Boston and catching the final train for the short last leg of the trip toDevon, instead of that I sat back in the seat and heard myself give the address of Finny's houseon the outskirts.