Fortitude

rst beatings that happened in his bedroom, his father's gloomy and solemn study serving as a background on more uni

his bed (a Bible, an "Arabian Nights," and tattered copies of "David Copperfield," "Vanity Fair," "Peregrine Pickle," "Tom Jones," and "Harry Lorrequer"), on the little washing stand, a chest of drawers, a cane-botto

er he ought to undress or no. There was no question about it now, he was horribly, dreadfully afraid. That wisdom of old Frosted Moses seemed a very long ago, and it was of very little use. If it had all happened at once after he had come in then he might have endured it, b

s fingers shook as he undressed, and his stud slipped and he could not undo hi

o that he was so lonely. Stephen seemed so dreadfully far away and he had other things to think about; he wondered whether his mother in that strange white room ever thought of him,

ther's footstep. The door opened, and his father came i

e?" the voice

, fa

you ought to be

, fa

ke your going to

, fa

on your doing your

, fa

ot to fight the oth

, fa

disobey me

ow. I try t

wicked boy. You are a great tro

r. I want t

ck, the dark close-cropped hair, but he was cold, and the b

bedience. Take of

aked figure in the starlight, but his

over t

s naked back. He buried his head in the counterpane and

though a knife were cutting his body in half. But it was more than that-there was terror with him now in the r

and grated on one another; but before his eyes was the picture of Stephen slowly straightening himself before his enemy and then that swinging blo

ead was bursting and the soles

m a long way away,

l not disobe

and closed it, then he climbed very slowly on to his bed, and the tears that he had held back came, slowly at first, and then more rapidly, at last in torrents. It was not the pain,

with crying, h