We took a dog or two for a
walk; we pretended to play a game of croquet. After lunch we
donned the badges of our servitude. The comfortable, careless,
dirty flannels were taken off, and the black coats and stiff
white collars put on. At 3.30 an early tea was ready for us--
something rather special, a last mockery of holiday. (Dressed
crab, I remember, on one occasion, and I travelled with my back
to the engine after it--a position I have never dared to assume
since.) Then good-byes, tips, kisses, a last look, and--the 4.10
was puffing out of the station. And nothing, nothing had
happened. I can remember thinking in the train how unfair it all
was. Fifty-two weeks in the year, I said to myself, and only
fifteen of them spent at home. A child snatched from his mother
at nine, and never again given back to her for more than two
months at a time. "Is this Russia?" I said; and, getting no
answer, could only comfort myself with the thought, "This day
twelve weeks!"
And once the incredible did happen. It was through no
intervention of Providence; no, it was entirely our own doing. We
got near some measles, and for a fortnight we were kept in
quarantine. I can say truthfully that we never spent a duller two
weeks. There seemed to be nothing to do at all. The idea that we
were working had to be fostered by our remaining shut up in one
room most of the day, and within the limits of that room we found
very little in the way of amusement.
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