A Separate Peace ch. 1

I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly

newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before...

I didn’t entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the

school look like a museum, and that’s exactly what it was to me, and

what I did not want it to be.

I felt fear’s echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable

joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had

broken out sometimes in those days likeNorthern Lights

across black sky.

There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both

were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them.

I started the long trudge across the fields and had gone

some distance before I paid any attention to the soft and

muddy ground, which was dooming my city shoes. I didn’tstop.

A little fog hung over the river so that as I neared it I felt myself becoming isolated

from everything except the river and the few trees beside it. The wind was blowing

more steadily here, and I was beginning to feel cold.

Moving through the soaked, coarse grass I began to examine each one closely,

and finally identified the tree I was looking for by means of certain small scars

rising along its trunk, and by a limb extending over the river, and another

thinner limb growing near it. This was the tree

I went back to the Devon School not long ago, and found it looking oddly

newer than when I was a student there fifteen years before...

I didn’t entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the

school look like a museum, and that’s exactly what it was to me, and

what I did not want it to be.