of an anaemic teacher stare uncomprehendingly at him over the pages of an
exercise book filled with colored drawings of George III and the British
flag, instead of a description of the battle of Bunker Hill. He
remembered the hatred he had felt even then for the narrowness of the
local patriotism which had prompted him to this revenge. As a result, he
saw himself backed against the schoolhouse wall, facing with contempt a
yelling, jumping tangle of boys who, from a safe distance, called upon
the "traitor" and the "Dago" to come and be licked. He felt the rage
mount in his head like a burning wave, saw a change in the eyes and faces
of his foes, felt himself spring with a catlike leap, his lips tight
above his teeth and his arms moving like clawed wheels, saw boys run
yelling and himself darting between them down the road, to fall at last,
a trembling, sobbing bundle of reaction, into the grassy ditch.

In memory Stefan followed himself home. The word was used to denote the
house in which he and his father lived. A portrait of his mother hung
over the parlor stove. It was a chalk drawing from a photograph, crudely
done, but beautiful by reason of the subject. The face was young and very
round, the forehead beautifully low and broad under black waves of hair.
The nose was short and proud, the chin small but square, the mouth gaily
curving around little, even teeth. But the eyes were deep and somber;
there was passion in them, and romance. Stefan had not seen that face for
years, he barely remembered the original, but he could have drawn it now
in every detail. If the house in which it hung could be called home at
all, it was by virtue of that picture, the only thing of beauty in it.

Behind the portrait lay a few memories of joy and heartache, and one
final one of horror. Stefan probed them, still with his nervous hand
across his eyes. He listened while his mother sang gay or mournful little
songs with haunting tunes in a tongue only a word or two of which he