fell asleep.

He awoke from a dream in the middle of the night. He had dreamt that
he held the gardener's daughter in his arms. He could not remember the
circumstances, for he was quite dazed, and fell asleep again directly.

On the following morning he was depressed and had a headache. He
brooded over the future which loomed before him threateningly and
filled him with dread. He realised with a pang how quickly the summer
was passing, for the end of the summer meant the degradation of
school-life. Every thought of his own would be stifled by the thoughts
of others; there was no advantage in being able to think independently;
it required a fixed number of years before one could reach one's goal.
It was like a journey on a good's train; the engine was bound to remain
for a certain time in the stations, and when the pressure of the steam
became too strong, from want of consumption of energy, a waste-pipe had
to be opened. The Board had drawn up the time-table and the train was
not permitted to arrive at the stations before its appointed time. That
was the principal thing which mattered.

The father noticed the boy's pallor, but he put it down to grief over
his mother's death.

Autumn came and with it the return to school. Theodore, by dint of
much novel-reading during the summer, and coming in this way, as it
were, in constant contact with grown-up people and their problems and
struggles, had come to look upon himself as a grown-up member of
society. Now the masters treated him with familiarity, the boys took
liberties which compelled him to repay them in kind. And this
educational institution, which was to ennoble him and make him fit to