Читать книгу Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems for the Young of All Ages онлайн

39 страница из 152

I returned at last from the heavy sleep I had fallen into, my forehead resting on the backs of my hands, and they flat on the huge open volume, my whole body stiff with cold, and the first clear grey of daybreak in the East. And suddenly, as my awakened eyes stared dully about them in that thin light—the old windows, the strange outlandish objects, the clustering pictures, the countless books, my own ugly writing on my paper—an indescribable despair and anxiety—almost terror even—seized upon me at the rushing thought of my own ignorance; of how little I knew, of how unimportant I was. And, again and again, my ignorance. Then I thought of Miss Taroone, of Mr. Nahum, of the life before me, and everything yet to do. And a sullen misery swept up in me at these reflections. And once more I wished from the bottom of my heart that I had never come to this house.

But gradually the light broadened. And with it, confidence began to return. The things around me that had seemed strange and hostile became familiar again. I stood up and stretched myself and, I think, muttered a prayer.