526
PARTISAN REVIEW
to me from a very early age. A word we all constantly used in
speaking of Bingo was "favor." "I'm in good favor," we would
say, or "I'm in bad favor." Except for the handful of wealthy or
titled boys, no one was permanently
in
good favor, but on the other
hand even the outcasts had patches of it from time to time. Thus,
although my memories of Bingo are mostly hostile, I also remember
considerable periods when I basked under her smiles, when she
called me "old chap" and used my Christian name, and allowed me
to frequent her private library, where I first made acquaintance with
Vanity Fair.
The high-water mark of good favor was to be invited
to serve at table on Sunday nights when Bingo and Sim had guests to
dinner.
In
clearing away, of course, one had a chance to finish off
the scraps, but one also got a servile pleasure from standing behind
the seated guests and darting deferentially forward when some–
thing was wanted. Whenever one had the chance to suck up, one
did suck up, and at the first smile one's hatred turned into a sort
of cringing love. I was always tremendously proud when I succeeded
in making Bingo laugh. I have even, at her command, written
vers
d'occasion,
comic verses to celebrate memorable events in the life of
the school.
I am anxious to make it clear that I was not a rebel, except
by force of circumstances. I accepted the codes that I found in
existence. Once, toward the end of my time, I even sneaked to
Brown about a suspected case of homosexuality. I did not know
very well what homosexuality was, but I knew that
it
happened and
was bad, and that this was one of the contexts
in
which it was
proper to sneak. Brown -told me I was "a good fellow," which
made me feel horribly ashamed. Before Bingo one seemed as help–
less as a snake before a snake-charmer. She had a hardly-varying
vocabulary of praise and abuse, a whole series of set phrases, each
of which promptly called forth the appropriate response. There was
((Buck
up, old chap!", which inspired one to paroxysms of energy;
there was "Don't
be
such a fool!" (or, "It's pathetic, isn't it?"),
which made one feel a born idiot; and there was "It isn't very straight
of you, is it?", which always brought one to the brink of tears. And
yet all the while, at the middle of one's heart, there seemed to stand
an incorruptible inner self who knew that whatever one did-
