It is as if I were fifteen again. I am back at school. My mind is on my geometry problem. Leaning over the worn black desk, I work away dutifully with compass and ruler and protractor. I am quiet and industrious. Near by sit some of my schoolmates, talking in murmurs. One of them stands at a blackboard chalking up figures.
Others less studious are playing bridge. Out of doors I see the branch of a tree swaying in the breeze. I drop my work and stare at it. From an industrious pupil I have become an idle one. The shining sun fills me with peace.
I inhale with delight the childhood odor of the wooden desk, the chalk, the blackboard in this schoolhouse in which we are quartered. I revel in the sense of security born of this daydream of a sheltered childhood.
What course life takes we all know. We are children, we are sent to school, we make friends, we go to college β and we are graduated. Some sort of diploma is handed to us, and our hearts pound as we are ushered across a certain threshold, marched through a certain porch, the other side of which we are of a sudden grown men.
Now our footfalls strike the ground with a new assurance. We have begun to make our way in life, to take the first few steps of our way in life.
