MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[0412] I have tried to reflect on the beginning of my story. [0413] There
are things I do not understand. [0414] But nothing to signify. [0415] I can
go on.

[0416] Sapo had no friends - [0417] no, that won't do.

[0418] Sapo was on good terms with his little friends, though they
did not exactly love him. [0419] The dolt is seldom solitary. [0420] He boxed
and wrestled well, was fleet of foot, sneered at his teachers
and sometimes even gave them impertinent answers. [0421] Fleet of foot?
[0422] Well well. [0423] Pestered with questions one day he cried, Haven't I told
you I don't know^! [0424] Much of his free time he spent confined in
school doing impositions and often he did not get home before eight
o'clock at night. [0425] He submitted with philosophy to these vexations.

[0426] But he would not let himself be struck. [0427] The first time an exasperated
master threatened him with a cane, Sapo snatched it from his hand
and threw it out of the window, which was closed, for it was winter.
[0428] This was enough to justify his expulsion. [0429] But Sapo was not
expelled, either then or later.

[0430] I must try and discover, when I
have time to think about it quietly, why Sapo was not expelled when
he so richly deserved to be. [0431] For I want as little as possible of
darkness in his story. [0432] A little darkness, in itself, at the time,
is nothing. [0433] You think no more about it and you go on. [0434] But I know
what darkness is, it accumulates, thickens, then suddenly bursts
and drowns everything.