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would have been. I gave them credit
for this, but I was most anxious to put an end to the persecution
and also to get even with them. Even, but no more: I was not
vindictive. Luckily the jeering words were written in pencil.
Retiring with the defaced diary to the lavatory, I set about
erasing them, and it was there, in the relaxed state of mind that
mechanical rubbing induces, that I had my idea.
      They would believe, so I reasoned, that the diary
had been. discredited forever as a talisman for self-esteem—and,
indeed, they were nearly right, for at first I felt that it had
lost its magic by being violated; I could hardly bear to look at
it. But as little by little the taunting word “vanquished”
disappeared, the diary began to recover its value for me, I felt
its power returning. How wonderful if I could make it the
instrument of my vengeance! There would be poetic justice in that.
Moreover, my enemies would be off their guard, they would never
suspect danger from a gun they had so thoroughly spiked. And at the
same time their consciences would not be quite easy about it, it
would be a symbol of the injury they had done me, and they would be
all the more sensitive to an attack from it.
      In the privacy of my retreat I practised
assiduously; and then I cut my finger, dipped my pen in blood, and
transcribed the two curses into the diary.
      I looked at them now, brown and faded, but still
legible though not comprehensible, except for the two names printed
in block letters, JENKINS AND STRODE, which stood out in sinister
intelligibility. Comprehensible they never were, for they made no
sense: I concocted them out of figures and algebraical symbols and
what I remembered of some Sanskrit characters I had seen and pored
over in a translation of the
Peau de chagrin
at home.
CURSE ONE was followed by CURSE TWO. Each took a page of the diary.
On the next page, which was otherwise blank, I had written:
     
              CURSE
THREE
      AFTER CURSE THREE THE VICTIM DIES
      
Given under my hand and written in my
BLOOD
               BY
ORDER
              THE
AVENGER.
     
      Faded though the characters were, they still
breathed malevolence, they could still pluck a superstitious nerve,
and I ought to have been ashamed of them. But I was not. On the
contrary I felt a certain envy of the self of those days, who would
not take things lying down, who had no notion of appeasement, and
who was prepared to put all he had into making himself respected in
society.
      What I expected to be the outcome of my plan I
hardly knew, but I put the diary in my locker, which I purposely
left unlocked, even ajar, with the cover of the diary showing, and
awaited results.
      I did not have long to wait—the results came very
soon and were very disagreeable. Within a few hours I was set upon,
and the drubbing I got then was the worst of the whole series. “Are
you vanquished, Colston, are you vanquished?” cried Strode,
bestriding me in the mêlée. “Who’s the avenger now?” And he pressed
his fingers under my eyes, a trick that, it was commonly believed,
would cause them to pop out.
      That night, in bed, my smarting eyes shed tears for
the first time. It was my second term at school; I had never been
unpopular before, still less had I been systematically bullied, and
I didn’t know what to make of it. I felt I had shot my bolt. All my
persecutors were older than I was, and I couldn’t possibly gather
together a gang to fight them. And failing that, I couldn’t ask for
sympathy. It was perfectly correct to enlist supporters if action
was to be the outcome; but to confide in someone for the sake of
confiding, that simply was not done. All the other four boys in my
dormitory (Maudsley was one) knew of my trouble, of course; but not
one would have dreamed of mentioning it, even when they saw my
scars and bruises—perhaps least of all then. Even to say “Bad luck”
would have been in bad taste, as