He simply frightened me
into having a different morality when I was in his presence to what
I had elsewhere. But he did not make me love goodness thereby, and
only gave me a sense that certain things, harmless in themselves,
must not be done or said in the presence of papa. He did not always
remember his own rules, and there was thus an element of injustice
in his rebukes, which one merely accepted as part of his awful and
unaccountable greatness.
When I was transferred to a private school, a great big place, very
well managed in every way, I lived for a time in atrocious terror
of everything and everybody. I was conscious of a great code of
rules which I did not know or understand, which I might quite
unwittingly break, and the consequences of which might be fatal. I
was never punished or caned, nor was I ever bullied. But I simply
effaced myself as far as possible, and lived in dread of disaster.
The thought even now of certain high blank walls with lofty barred
windows, the remembered smells of certain passages and corners, the
tall form and flashing eye of our headmaster and the faint
fragrance of Havana cigars which hung about him, the bare corridors
with their dark cupboards, the stone stairs and iron railings--all
this gives me a far-off sense of dread.
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