42"How many?""Who knows? Get some. As many as you can carry. That won't be too many."Jobs like mine were usually taken by boys with some physical disability, since everyone hadto take part in sports and this was all disabled boys could do. As I walked toward the door Isupposed that Quackenbush was studying me to see if he could detect a limp. But I knew thathis flat black eyes would never detect my trouble.Quackenbush felt mellower by the end of the afternoon as we stood on the float in front ofthe Crew House, gathering up towels."You never rowed did you." He opened the conversation like that, without pause or questionmark. His voice sounded almost too mature, as though he were putting it on a little; he soundedas though he were speaking through a tube."No, I never did.""I rowed on the lightweight crew for two years."He had a tough bantam body, easily detectable under the tight sweat shirt he wore. "I wrestlein the winter," he went on. "What are you doing in the winter?""I don't know, manage something else.""You're a senior aren't you?"He knew that I was a senior. "Yeah.""Starting a little late to manage teams aren't you?""Am I?""Damn right you are!" He put indignant conviction into this, pouncing on the first sprig ofassertiveness in me."Well, it doesn't matter.""Yes it matters.""I don't think it does.""Go to hell Forrester. Who the hell are you anyway."I turned with an inward groan to look at him. Quackenbush wasn't going to let me just dothe work for him like the automaton I wished to be. We were going to have to be pitted againsteach other. It was easy enough now to see why. For Quackenbush had been systematicallydisliked since he first set foot in Devon, with careless, disinterested insults coming at him fromthe beginning, voting for and applauding the class leaders through years of attaining nothing hewanted for himself. I didn't want to add to his humiliations; I even sympathized with his
43trembling, goaded egotism he could no longer contain, the furious arrogance which sprang outnow at the mere hint of opposition from someone he had at last found whom he could considerinferior to himself. I realized that all this explained him, and it wasn't the words he said whichangered me. It was only that he was so ignorant, that he knew nothing of the gypsy summer,nothing of the loss I was fighting to endure, of skylarks and splashes and petal-bearing breezes,he had not seen Leper's snails or the Charter of the Super Suicide Society; he shared nothing,knew nothing, felt nothing as Phineas had done."You, Quackenbush, don't know anything about who I am." That launched me, and I had togo on and say, "or anything else.""Listen you maimed son-of-a-bitch . . ."I hit him hard across the face. I didn't know why for an instant; it was almost as though Iwere maimed. Then the realization that there was someone who was flashed over me.Quackenbush had clamped his arm in some kind of tight wrestling grip around my neck, andI was glad in this moment not to be a cripple. I reached over, grasped the back of his sweatshirt, wrenched, and it came away in my hand. I tried to throw him off, he lunged at the sametime, and we catapulted into the water.The dousing extinguished Quackenbush's rage, and he let go of me. I scrambled back ontothe float, still seared by what he had said. "The next time you call anybody maimed," I bit offthe words harshly so he would understand all of them, "you better make sure they are first.""Get out of here, Forrester," he said bitterly from the water, "you're not wanted around here,Forrester. Get out of here."I fought that battle, that first skirmish of a long campaign, for Finny. Until the back of myhand cracked against Quackenbush's face I had never pictured myself in the role of Finny'sdefender, and I didn't suppose that he would have thanked me for it now. He was too loyal toanything connected with himself—his roommate, his dormitory, his class, his school, outwardin vastly expanded circles of loyalty until I couldn't imagine who would be excluded. But itdidn't feel exactly as though I had done it for Phineas. It felt as though I had done it for myself.If so I had little profit to show as I straggled back toward the dormitory dripping wet, withthe job I had wanted gone, temper gone, mind circling over and over through the whole souredafternoon. I knew now that it was fall all right; I could feel it pressing clammily against my wetclothes, an unfriendly, discomforting breath in the air, an edge of wintery chill, air thatshriveled, soon to put out the lights on the countryside. One of my legs wouldn't stoptrembling, whether from cold or anger I couldn't tell. I wished I had hit him harder.Someone was coming toward me along the bent, broken lane which led to the dormitory, alane out of old London, ancient houses on either side leaning as though soon to tumble into it,cobblestones heaving underfoot like a bricked-over ocean squall—a figure of great heightadvanced down them toward me. It could only be Mr. Ludsbury; no one else could pass overthese stones with such contempt for the idea of tripping.
- Page 1 and 2: 1John KnowlesA Separate Peace
- Page 4 and 5: 4Devon was both scholarly and very
- Page 6 and 7: 6sprang out, fell through the tops
- Page 8 and 9: 8a kitchen rattle from the wing of
- Page 10 and 11: 10true and sincere; Finny always sa
- Page 12 and 13: 12Withers, perched nervously behind
- Page 14 and 15: 14of the great northern forests. I
- Page 16 and 17: 163Yes, he had practically saved my
- Page 18 and 19: 18Up the field the others at badmin
- Page 20 and 21: 20that Finny could shine at it. He
- Page 22 and 23: 22"You can try it again and break i
- Page 24 and 25: 24tonks and shooting galleries and
- Page 26 and 27: 26But Finny gave me little time to
- Page 28 and 29: 28was weakened by the very genuinen
- Page 30 and 31: 30"Don't go." He said it very simpl
- Page 32 and 33: 325None of us was allowed near the
- Page 34 and 35: 34The door was slightly ajar, and I
- Page 36 and 37: 36We found it fairly easily, on a s
- Page 38 and 39: 38"Sure, I'll be there by Thanksgiv
- Page 40 and 41: 40Still it had come to an end, in t
- Page 44 and 45: 44The houses on either side were in
- Page 46 and 47: 46"No, I wouldn't.""And I spent my
- Page 48 and 49: 48"What?" I pulled quickly around i
- Page 50 and 51: 50They laughed at him a little, and
- Page 52 and 53: 52"I'm not sure, Leper, but I think
- Page 54 and 55: 54After they had gone we laborers l
- Page 56 and 57: 56To enlist. To slam the door impul
- Page 58 and 59: 588"I can see I never should have l
- Page 60 and 61: 60"So," Brinker curled his lip at m
- Page 62 and 63: 62So the war swept over like a wave
- Page 64 and 65: 64We went into the gym, along a mar
- Page 66 and 67: 66you at the Funny Farm.""In a way,
- Page 68 and 69: 68large rambling, doubtfully Coloni
- Page 70 and 71: 709This was my first but not my las
- Page 72 and 73: 72Giraud but Lepellier; we knew, be
- Page 74 and 75: 74"Who wants a Winter Carnival?" he
- Page 76 and 77: 76Still the sleek brown head bent m
- Page 78 and 79: 78ELWIN LEPER LEPELLIER.
- Page 80 and 81: 80escapes from is danger, death, th
- Page 82 and 83: 82"That's what you say. But that's
- Page 84 and 85: 84a good boy underneath," she must
- Page 86 and 87: 86the Mess Hall, I had to eat every
- Page 88 and 89: 88"How's Leper?" he asked in an off
- Page 90 and 91: 90I didn't say anything."He must be
- Page 92 and 93:
92never will.""You're so wrong I ca
- Page 94 and 95:
94I believed you," he added hurried
- Page 96 and 97:
96acoustics in the school. I couldn
- Page 98 and 99:
98the tree did it by itself. It's a
- Page 100 and 101:
100"Here! Go get him," said Brinker
- Page 102 and 103:
102"I can't think of the name of th
- Page 104 and 105:
104Dr. Stanpole stopped near the do
- Page 106 and 107:
106hurt my stomach and I could feel
- Page 108 and 109:
108and "psycho" and "sulfa," strang
- Page 110 and 111:
110His face had been struggling to
- Page 112 and 113:
11213The quadrangle surrounding the
- Page 114 and 115:
114Brinker slid his fingers into th
- Page 116 and 117:
116At the gym a platoon was undress
Change language