A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School
A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School A Separate Peace.pdf - Southwest High School
82"That's what you say. But that's because you're talking through your hat." His eyes werefurious now too, glaring blindly at me. "What do you know about it, anyway?" None of thiscould have been said by the Leper of the beaver dam."Well I—how am I supposed to answer that? I know what's normal in the army, that's all.""Normal," he repeated bitterly. "What a stupid-ass word that is. I suppose that's what you'rethinking about, isn't it? That's what you would be thinking about, somebody like you. You'rethinking I'm not normal, aren't you? I can see what you're thinking—I see a lot I never sawbefore"—his voice fell to a querulous whisper—"you're thinking I'm psycho."I gathered what the word meant. I hated the sound of it at once. It opened up a world I hadnot known existed—"mad" or "crazy" or "a screw loose," those were the familiar words."Psycho" had a sudden mental-ward reality about it, a systematic, diagnostic sound. It was asthough Leper had learned it while in captivity, far from Devon or Vermont or any experiencewe had in common, as though it were in Japanese.Fear seized my stomach like a cramp. I didn't care what I said to him now; it was myself Iwas worried about. For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and Iand all of us were on the brink of the army. "You make me sick, you and your damn a mywords.""They were going to give me," he was almost laughing, everywhere but in his eyes whichcontinued to oppose all he said, "they were going to give me a discharge, a Section Eightdischarge."As a last defense I had always taken refuge in a scornful superiority, based on nothing. Isank back in the chair, eyebrows up, shoulders shrugging. "I don't even know what you'retalking about. You just don't make any sense at all. It's all Japanese to me.""A Section Eight discharge is for the nuts in the service, the psychos, the Funny Farmcandidates. Now do you know what I'm talking about? They give you a Section Eightdischarge, like a dishonorable discharge only worse. You can't get a job after that. Everybodywants to see your discharge, and when they see a Section Eight they look at you kind of funny—the kind of expression you've got on your face, like you were looking at someone with theirnose blown off but don't want them to know you're disgusted—they look at you that way andthen they say, 'Well, there doesn't seem to be an opening here at present.' You're screwed forlife, that's what a Section Eight discharge means.""You don't have to yell at me, there's nothing wrong with my hearing.""Then that's tough shit for you, Buster. Then they've got you.""Nobody's got me.""Oh they've got you all right.""Don't tell me who's got me and who hasn't got me. Who do you think you're talking to?
83Stick to your snails, Lepellier."He began to laugh again. "You always were a lord of the manor, weren't you? A swell guy,except when the chips were down. You always were a savage underneath. I always knew thatonly I never admitted it. But in the last few weeks," despair broke into his face again, "Iadmitted a hell of a lot to myself. Not about you. Don't flatter yourself. I wasn't thinking aboutyou. Why the hell should I think about you? Did you ever think about me? I thought aboutmyself, and Ma, and the old man, and pleasing them all the time. Well, never mind about thatnow. It's you we happen to be talking about now. Like a savage underneath. Like," now therewas the blind confusion in his eyes again, a wild slyness around his mouth, "like that time youknocked Finny out of the tree."I sprang out of the chair. "You stupid crazy bastard—"Still laughing, "Like that time you crippled him for life."I shoved my foot against the rung of his chair and kicked. Leper went over in his chair andcollapsed against the floor. Laughing and crying he lay with his head on the floor and his kneesup, ". . . always were a savage underneath."Quick heels coming down the stairs, and his mother, large, soft, and gentle-looking,quivered at the entrance. "What on earth happened? Elwin!""I'm terribly—it was a mistake," I listened objectively to my own voice, "he said somethingcrazy. I forgot myself—I forgot that he's, there's something the matter with his nerves, isn'tthere? He didn't know what he was saying.""Well, good heaven, the boy is ill." We both moved swiftly to help up the chuckling Leper."Did you come here to abuse him?""I'm terribly sorry," I muttered. "I'd better get going."Mrs. Lepellier was helping Leper toward the stairs. "Don't go," he said between chuckles,"stay for lunch. You can count on it. Always three meals a day, war or peace, in this room."And I did stay. Sometimes you are too ashamed to leave. That was true now. And sometimesyou need too much to know the facts, and so humbly and stupidly you stay. That was true nowtoo.It was an abundant Vermont lunch, more like a dinner, and at first it had no more reality thana meal in the theater. Leper ate almost nothing, but my own appetite deepened my disgrace. Iate everything within reach, and then had to ask, face aflame with embarrassment, for more tobe passed to me. But that led to this hard-to-believe transformation: Mrs. Lepellier began to bereconciled to me because I liked her cooking. Toward the end of the meal she became able tospeak to me directly, in her high but gentle and modulated voice, and I was so clumsy andfumbling and embarrassed that my behavior throughout lunch amounted to one long andelaborate apology which, when she offered me a second dessert, I saw she had accepted. "He's
- 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 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 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
82"That's what you say. But that's because you're talking through your hat." His eyes werefurious now too, glaring blindly at me. "What do you know about it, anyway?" None of thiscould have been said by the Leper of the beaver dam."Well I—how am I supposed to answer that? I know what's normal in the army, that's all.""Normal," he repeated bitterly. "What a stupid-ass word that is. I suppose that's what you'rethinking about, isn't it? That's what you would be thinking about, somebody like you. You'rethinking I'm not normal, aren't you? I can see what you're thinking—I see a lot I never sawbefore"—his voice fell to a querulous whisper—"you're thinking I'm psycho."I gathered what the word meant. I hated the sound of it at once. It opened up a world I hadnot known existed—"mad" or "crazy" or "a screw loose," those were the familiar words."Psycho" had a sudden mental-ward reality about it, a systematic, diagnostic sound. It was asthough Leper had learned it while in captivity, far from Devon or Vermont or any experiencewe had in common, as though it were in Japanese.Fear seized my stomach like a cramp. I didn't care what I said to him now; it was myself Iwas worried about. For if Leper was psycho it was the army which had done it to him, and Iand all of us were on the brink of the army. "You make me sick, you and your damn a mywords.""They were going to give me," he was almost laughing, everywhere but in his eyes whichcontinued to oppose all he said, "they were going to give me a discharge, a Section Eightdischarge."As a last defense I had always taken refuge in a scornful superiority, based on nothing. Isank back in the chair, eyebrows up, shoulders shrugging. "I don't even know what you'retalking about. You just don't make any sense at all. It's all Japanese to me.""A Section Eight discharge is for the nuts in the service, the psychos, the Funny Farmcandidates. Now do you know what I'm talking about? They give you a Section Eightdischarge, like a dishonorable discharge only worse. You can't get a job after that. Everybodywants to see your discharge, and when they see a Section Eight they look at you kind of funny—the kind of expression you've got on your face, like you were looking at someone with theirnose blown off but don't want them to know you're disgusted—they look at you that way andthen they say, 'Well, there doesn't seem to be an opening here at present.' You're screwed forlife, that's what a Section Eight discharge means.""You don't have to yell at me, there's nothing wrong with my hearing.""Then that's tough shit for you, Buster. Then they've got you.""Nobody's got me.""Oh they've got you all right.""Don't tell me who's got me and who hasn't got me. Who do you think you're talking to?
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