56To enlist. To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything down to my last bitof clothing, to break the pattern of my life—that complex design I had been weaving sincebirth with all its dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional backgroundof domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those tangled strands which required the dexterity ofa virtuoso to keep flowing—I yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten off in aninstant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki which could weave only a plain, flat,khaki design, however twisted they might be.Not that it would be a good life. The war would be deadly all right. But I was used tofinding something deadly in things that attracted me; there was always something deadlylurking in anything I wanted, anything I loved. And if it wasn't there, as for example withPhineas, then I put it there myself.But in the war, there was no question about it at all; it was there.I separated from Brinker in the quadrangle, since one of his clubs was meeting and he couldnot go back to the dormitory yet—"I've got to preside at a meeting of the Golden FleeceDebating Society tonight," he said in a tone of amazed contempt, "the Golden Fleece DebatingSociety! We're mad here, all mad," and he went off raving to himself in the dark.It was a night made for hard thoughts. Sharp stars pierced singly through the blackness, notsweeps of them or clusters or Milky Ways as there might have been in the South, but single,chilled points of light, as unromantic as knife blades. Devon, muffled under the gentleoccupation of the snow, was dominated by them; the cold Yankee stars ruled this night. Theydid not invoke in me thoughts of God, or sailing before the mast, or some great love ascrowded night skies at home had done; I thought instead, in the light of those cold points, ofthe decision facing me.Why go through the motions of getting an education and watch the war slowly chip away atthe one thing I had loved here, the peace, the measureless, careless peace of the Devonsummer? Others, the Quackenbushes of this world, could calmly watch the war approach themand jump into it at the last and most advantageous instant, as though buying into the stockmarket. But I couldn't.There was no one to stop me but myself. Putting aside soft reservations about What I OwedDevon and my duty to my parents and so on, I reckoned my responsibilities by the light of theunsentimental night sky and knew that I owed no one anything. I owed it to myself to meet thiscrisis in my life when I chose, and I chose now.I bounced zestfully up the dormitory stairs. Perhaps because my mind still retained theimage of the sharp night stars, those few fixed points of light in the darkness, perhaps becauseof that the warm yellow light streaming from under my own door came as such a shock. It wasa simple case of a change of expectation. The light should have been off. Instead, as thoughalive itself, it poured in a thin yellow slab of brightness from under the door, illuminating thedust and splinters of the hall floor.
57I grabbed the knob and swung open the door. He was seated in my chair at the desk, bendingdown to adjust the gross encumbrance of his leg, so that only the familiar ears set close againsthis head were visible, and his short-cut brown hair. He looked up with a provocative grin, "Hipal, where's the brass band?"Everything that had happened throughout the day faded like that first false snowfall of thewinter. Phineas was back.
- 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 42 and 43: 42"How many?""Who knows? Get some.
- 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 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
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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
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11213The quadrangle surrounding the
- Page 114 and 115:
114Brinker slid his fingers into th
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116At the gym a platoon was undress
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