DOI article:
Grahame, Kenneth: A falling out
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0199
A Falling Out
By Kenneth Grahame
Harold told me the main facts of this episode, some time
later—in bits, and with reluctance. It was not a recollec-
tion he cared to talk about. The crude blank misery of a moment
is apt to leave a dull bruise which is slow to depart, if indeed it ever
does so entirely ; and Harold confesses to a twinge or two, still, at
times, like the veteran who brings home a bullet inside him from
martial plains over sea.
He knew he was a brüte the moment after he had done it ; Selina
had not meant to worry, only to comfort and assist. But his
soul was one raw sore within him, when he found himself shut up
in the schoolroom after hours, merely for insisting that 7 times 7
amounted to 47. The injustice of it seemed so flagrant. Why
not 47 as much as 49 ? One number was no prettier than the
other to look at, and it was evidently only a matter of arbitrary
taste and preference, and, anyhow, it had always been 47 to him,
and would be to the end of time. So when Selina came in out of
the sun, leaving the Trappers of the Far West behind her, and
putting off the glory of being an Apache squaw in order to hear
him his tables and win his release, Harold turned on her venom-
ously, rejected her kindly overtures, and even drove his elbow into
her sympathetic ribs, in his determination to be left alone in the
The Yellow Book.—Vol. IV. m glory
By Kenneth Grahame
Harold told me the main facts of this episode, some time
later—in bits, and with reluctance. It was not a recollec-
tion he cared to talk about. The crude blank misery of a moment
is apt to leave a dull bruise which is slow to depart, if indeed it ever
does so entirely ; and Harold confesses to a twinge or two, still, at
times, like the veteran who brings home a bullet inside him from
martial plains over sea.
He knew he was a brüte the moment after he had done it ; Selina
had not meant to worry, only to comfort and assist. But his
soul was one raw sore within him, when he found himself shut up
in the schoolroom after hours, merely for insisting that 7 times 7
amounted to 47. The injustice of it seemed so flagrant. Why
not 47 as much as 49 ? One number was no prettier than the
other to look at, and it was evidently only a matter of arbitrary
taste and preference, and, anyhow, it had always been 47 to him,
and would be to the end of time. So when Selina came in out of
the sun, leaving the Trappers of the Far West behind her, and
putting off the glory of being an Apache squaw in order to hear
him his tables and win his release, Harold turned on her venom-
ously, rejected her kindly overtures, and even drove his elbow into
her sympathetic ribs, in his determination to be left alone in the
The Yellow Book.—Vol. IV. m glory