THE MORNING WATCH
155
remembered now that
this
kind of singing had satisfied him most at
Stations of the Cross, on cold rainy nights.
Perish ev'ry fond ambi–
tion,
he would sing magnanimously; (no I
won't
become a natur–
alist; I'll never explore the source of the Amazon; I'll never even
own a monkey, or be junior tennis champion);
all I've thought or
hoped or known;
then tears and their subdual rewarded him:
Yet
how rich is my condition
(never to live at home again, never to be
loved or even liked),
God and Hear:en are still my own;
and he saw
crowned God and Heaven shining and felt, in a humble kind of
way, that he literally owned them.
Now remembering it he shook
his
head almost as if in disbelief,
but he knew it had been so. Everything. He had done just about
everything he could
think
of. He had gone seldom to Father Fish's
cottage, for friendliness was certain there, and often cookies and
cocoa too, and he had found that these luxuries meant most to him,
in
his
desire to suffer for religious advantage, only when they were
indulged so rarely that even while they were being enjoyed they en–
hanced the bleakness of the rest of living. He even schemed to in–
tensify his homesickness to the utmost possible, asking permission of
the Master of the Day the more often, that it be the more curtly or
impatiently or, at best, contemptuously refused; watching his mother's
cottage, the one place he was almost never allowed to go, sometimes
by the hour; sometimes in ambush under dripping trees, relishing the
fact that only he knew of the miserableness of that watch; some–
times openly, hanging against the fence, relishing the fact that she
knew, and others could see, and that even though she knew, she
would try to ignore him and stay out of his sight, and that when at
last she could ignore him no longer, she would hurt
him
by trying to
be stern with him as she told
him
to go away, and would sharpen
his
unhappiness into agony by her idea of a sensible explanation why
this
senseless cruelty had to be law.
"Because dear, mother
thinks
it's best for you not to be too
near her, all the more because you miss her so much." "Because
your father-isn't
with
us." "Because mother
thinks
you need to be
among other boys Richard. In charge of men." And worst of all: "I
know how hard it is now but I know that when you're older you'll
understand why I did it, and thank me for it."
Thank her!
his
heart
sneered now, in bitter paroxysm. And for a moment so brief that the
