facts and the words describing them) impregnates the text with a notion of choice which encourages the reader to infer a false range and type of choice being open to the two pigeons. Description distorts.
On an afternoon in late May 1902 (a few weeks before the end ofthe Boer War), Beatrice seduces him. What happens happens like an undescribed natural event.
When Laura and her son returned from Milan at the end of May 1898 they found that Beatrice was engaged to be married to Captain Patrick Bierce of the 17th Lancers. The boy was sent to a boarding school. During most school holidays he stayed alone with Jocelyn on the farm. (Beatrice accompanied her husband when he was posted to South Africa.)
The type of school to which he was sent has been frequently described. Its daily routine was spartan: its ideology imperialistic and religious: its social life authoritarian and sadistic. The purpose of the education which the school offered was to produce empire-builders.
Like many other boys he adapted himself to school life. A certain aloofness reinforced what his companions immediately recognized as his foreignness. He was not, however, unduly persecuted. His very indifference was a kind of protection. He was nicknamed Garibaldi because he claimed that his father was Italian. He spent an unusual amount of his free time playing the piano in the school music rooms. His interest in music was entirely disproportionate to his small talent.
At the age of fourteen his face was no longer that of a child. The change is sometimes thought of as a coarsening process; this misses the point. The change—which may occur any time between fourteen and twenty-four—involves a simultaneous gain and loss in expressiveness. The texture of the skin, the form of the flesh over the bones, become mute; their appearance becomes a covering, whereas in childhood it is a declaration of being. (Compare our response to children and to adults: we give to the existence of children the value we give to the intentions of adults.) However, the openings in the covering—especially the eyes and mouth—become more expressive, precisely because they now offer indications of what lies hidden behind.
The process of maturing and, later, of ageing involves a gradual but increasing withdrawal of the self from the exterior surface of the body. The skin of the very old is like a garment. The mouth of the man next to the boy—it was Jocelyn—was already inexpressive; he had withdrawn from his mouth: his lips were no more than a flange of the outer covering. This covering offered a certain amount of information: country gentleman, outdoor life, taciturn, disappointed. It was only through his eyes that one could still sometimes glimpse that part of his self still capable of response.
They were walking up a steep winding path with high hedges on either side. It was a late November afternoon (1900), very similar to the one when the men in sack-cloth had shown the boy the dead dray-horses. He had spoken to nobody of this incident. He remembered it vividly without seeking any explanation. It had acquired the isolated absoluteness of a vision. For him his experiencing it was its explanation.
It had been raining hard during the day. Beside the path water was running fast downhill along a stone-bedded ditch, overgrown with grass. They could hear but not see the water. Both carried guns under their arms.
Earlier, the boy had been telling Jocelyn about a dream he had had.
… I was down in the Martin and it was very hot, like it was last summer. I was swimming and there were big birds flying very low over the water—not predatory birds. Sometimes a bird’s foot touched my hair. Then more and more birds came so that I was forced to swim to the bank and climb out.
Tedder was telling me it’s going to be an exceptional year for duck on the estuary, said Jocelyn.
I started looking for my clothes. But somebody had changed them. They weren’t the same clothes as before.
On an afternoon in late May 1902 (a few weeks before the end ofthe Boer War), Beatrice seduces him. What happens happens like an undescribed natural event.
When Laura and her son returned from Milan at the end of May 1898 they found that Beatrice was engaged to be married to Captain Patrick Bierce of the 17th Lancers. The boy was sent to a boarding school. During most school holidays he stayed alone with Jocelyn on the farm. (Beatrice accompanied her husband when he was posted to South Africa.)
The type of school to which he was sent has been frequently described. Its daily routine was spartan: its ideology imperialistic and religious: its social life authoritarian and sadistic. The purpose of the education which the school offered was to produce empire-builders.
Like many other boys he adapted himself to school life. A certain aloofness reinforced what his companions immediately recognized as his foreignness. He was not, however, unduly persecuted. His very indifference was a kind of protection. He was nicknamed Garibaldi because he claimed that his father was Italian. He spent an unusual amount of his free time playing the piano in the school music rooms. His interest in music was entirely disproportionate to his small talent.
At the age of fourteen his face was no longer that of a child. The change is sometimes thought of as a coarsening process; this misses the point. The change—which may occur any time between fourteen and twenty-four—involves a simultaneous gain and loss in expressiveness. The texture of the skin, the form of the flesh over the bones, become mute; their appearance becomes a covering, whereas in childhood it is a declaration of being. (Compare our response to children and to adults: we give to the existence of children the value we give to the intentions of adults.) However, the openings in the covering—especially the eyes and mouth—become more expressive, precisely because they now offer indications of what lies hidden behind.
The process of maturing and, later, of ageing involves a gradual but increasing withdrawal of the self from the exterior surface of the body. The skin of the very old is like a garment. The mouth of the man next to the boy—it was Jocelyn—was already inexpressive; he had withdrawn from his mouth: his lips were no more than a flange of the outer covering. This covering offered a certain amount of information: country gentleman, outdoor life, taciturn, disappointed. It was only through his eyes that one could still sometimes glimpse that part of his self still capable of response.
They were walking up a steep winding path with high hedges on either side. It was a late November afternoon (1900), very similar to the one when the men in sack-cloth had shown the boy the dead dray-horses. He had spoken to nobody of this incident. He remembered it vividly without seeking any explanation. It had acquired the isolated absoluteness of a vision. For him his experiencing it was its explanation.
It had been raining hard during the day. Beside the path water was running fast downhill along a stone-bedded ditch, overgrown with grass. They could hear but not see the water. Both carried guns under their arms.
Earlier, the boy had been telling Jocelyn about a dream he had had.
… I was down in the Martin and it was very hot, like it was last summer. I was swimming and there were big birds flying very low over the water—not predatory birds. Sometimes a bird’s foot touched my hair. Then more and more birds came so that I was forced to swim to the bank and climb out.
Tedder was telling me it’s going to be an exceptional year for duck on the estuary, said Jocelyn.
I started looking for my clothes. But somebody had changed them. They weren’t the same clothes as before.
Similar Books
The Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey Into the Minds of Sexual Predators
Stephen G. Michaud, Roy Hazelwood
