94I believed you," he added hurriedly, "but you're the nervous type, you know, and I thoughtmaybe your imagination got a little inflamed up there in Vermont. I thought he might not bequite as mixed up as you made out." Finny's face tried to prepare me for what came next."Then I saw him myself."I turned incredulously. "You saw Leper?""I saw him here this morning, after chapel. He was—well, there's nothing inflamed aboutmy imagination and I saw Leper hiding in the shrubbery next to the chapel. I slipped out theside door the way I always do—to miss the rush—and I saw Leper and he must have seen me.He didn't say a damn word. He looked at me like I was a gorilla or something and then heducked into Mr. Carhart's office.""He must be crazy," I said automatically, and then my eyes involuntarily met Finny's. Weboth broke into sudden laughter."We can't do a damn thing about it," he said ruefully."I don't want to see him," I muttered. Then, trying to be more responsible, "Who else knowshe's here.""No one, I would think.""There's nothing for us to do, maybe Carhart or Dr. Stanpole can do something. We won'ttell anybody about it because . . . because they would just scare Leper, and he would scarethem.""Anyway," said Finny, "then I knew there was a real war on.""Yes, I guess it's a real war all right. But I liked yours a lot better.""So did I.""I wish you hadn't found out. What did you have to find out for!" We started to laugh again,with a half-guilty exchange of glances, in the way that two people who had gone on a giganticbinge when they were last together would laugh when they met again at the parson's tea."Well," he said, "you did a beautiful job in the Olympics.""And you were the greatest news analyst who ever lived.""Do you realize you won every gold medal in every Olympic event? No one's ever doneanything like that in history.""And you scooped every newspaper in the world on every story." The sun was doing anticsamong the million specks of dust hanging between us and casting a brilliant, unstable pool oflight on the floor. "No one's ever done anything like that before."
95Brinker and three cohorts came with much commotion into our room at 10:05 P.M. thatnight. "We're taking you out," he said flatly."It's after hours," I said; "Where?" said Finny with interest at the same time."You'll see. Get them." His friends half-lifted us half-roughly, and we were hustled down thestairs. I thought it must be some kind of culminating prank, the senior class leaving Devon witha flourish. Were we going to steal the clapper of the school bell, or would we tether a cow inchapel?They steered us toward the First Building—burned down and rebuilt several times but stillknown as the First Building of the Devon <strong>School</strong>. It contained only classrooms and so at thishour was perfectly empty, which made us stealthier than ever. Brinker's many keys, survivingfrom his class-officer period, jingled softly as we reached the main door. Above us in Latinflowed the inscription, Here Boys Come to Be Made Men.The lock turned; we went in, entering the doubtful reality of a hallway familiar only indaylight and bustle. Our footsteps fell guiltily on the marble floor. We continued across thefoyer to a dreamlike bank of windows, turned left up a pale flight of marble steps, left again,through two doorways, and into the Assembly Room. From the high ceiling one of thecelebrated Devon chandeliers, all glittering tears, scattered thin illumination. Row after row ofblack Early American benches spread emptily back through the shadows to long, vaguewindows. At the front of the room there was a raised platform with a balustrade in front of it.About ten members of the senior class sat on the platform; all of them were wearing their blackgraduation robes. This is going to be some kind of schoolboy masquerade, I thought, somemasquerade with masks and candles."You see how Phineas limps," said Blinker loudly as we walked in. It was too coarse andtoo loud; I wanted to hit him for shocking me like that. Phineas looked perplexed. "Sit down,"he went on, "take a load off your feet." We sat in the front row of the benches where eight orten others were sitting, smirking uneasily at the students on the platform.Whatever Brinker had in his mind to do, I thought he had chosen a terrible place for it.There was nothing funny about the Assembly Room. I could remember staring torpidly throughthese windows a hundred times out at the elms of the Center Common. The windows now hadthe closed blankness of night, a deadened look about them, a look of being blind or deaf. Thegreat expanses of wall space were opaque with canvas, portraits in oil of deceasedheadmasters, a founder or two, forgotten leaders of the faculty, a beloved athletic coach none ofus had ever heard of, a lady we could not identify—her fortune had largely rebuilt the school; anameless poet who was thought when under the school's protection to be destined primarily forfuture generations; a young hero now anonymous who looked theatrical in the First World Waruniform in which he had died.I thought any prank was bound to fall flat here.The Assembly Hall was used for large lectures, debates, plays, and concerts; it had the worst
- Page 1 and 2:
1John KnowlesA Separate Peace
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4Devon was both scholarly and very
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6sprang out, fell through the tops
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8a kitchen rattle from the wing of
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10true and sincere; Finny always sa
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12Withers, perched nervously behind
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14of the great northern forests. I
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163Yes, he had practically saved my
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18Up the field the others at badmin
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20that Finny could shine at it. He
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22"You can try it again and break i
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24tonks and shooting galleries and
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26But Finny gave me little time to
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28was weakened by the very genuinen
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30"Don't go." He said it very simpl
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325None of us was allowed near the
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34The door was slightly ajar, and I
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36We found it fairly easily, on a s
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38"Sure, I'll be there by Thanksgiv
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40Still it had come to an end, in t
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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 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 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