THE MARK.
ifaurice Rowdon.


One evening in early winter I played under the lamp-post
opposite where we lived. These lamp-posts were thick and square
at the base, with a slippery ledge about the height of one's hips.
By getting on to this ledge and hugging the round part of the post
you could pull yourself up to the glass hood, inside which the gas
mantle glowed and hitssed, and you could swing on a cross-bar that
stuck out on one side like a gibbet. I never knew What this crossr
/ bar was fore Perhaps it was for the repairs man to lean his ladder
against when he changed the delicate little mantles.
The glow made a rough circle on the pavement, and beyond its
area the walls, the evergreen bushes an d the iron railings had the
appearance of dust that stood still and kept its shape in the breeze.
Usually the street was empty, especially on minter evenings. Trams
passed at the end, vobbling and scraping, and now and then a train
arrived at the station near by, paused for a fev moments and then
drew off again with a low rising groan as if 1t were saying Bome-
thing about the nature of its journey.
This evening I was playing alone and in my best clothes.
re were going to the theatre, which nas very exciting and Which
I had been thinking about for days. The window upstairs in the
house opposite would soon be pulled up and my mother vould lean
out and call softly, 'Come on, son, get your ooat on.' Then
she would lower it again BO that the sashes made a gentle, chirrup-
ing sound that went up and down like the cry of a little animal
from a burrow, also making a statement about life.
Near the lemp-post there W as the sharp kerb where I had
fallen not many reeks before and almost broken my nose. I had


made a pool of blood on the pavement while I was lying unconscious.
All I remembered was falling straight onto the sharp part of the
kerb, staggering for a few paces, then lowering myself softly, as
it seemed, on to the pavement. I woke up for a few seconds and
saw a little crowd of children round me and a vast waman called
Mrs Richards from the other end of the street who was so fat that
shé could hardly walk and who stood at her gate all day staring at
everyone mho passed. She had huge skirts, always black or dark
brown, and now she stood over me staring just as she did when she
leaned on her gate, summer and winter. Then I lost myself again
end woke up in bed, with my mother ringing her hands and crying
near by.
She told me afterwards that my brother had rushed to the
doctor's house faster than she had ever seen anybody run, with
blood all over his shirt and an absolutely terrified expression in
his eyes. Then he had cartied me over his shoulder up to the
bedroom, and a moment later the doctor arrived, expecting something
frightful.
The acoident was talked about again and again. Visitors
were told. People came that evening from other houses and made
enquiries. Some of them said they had seen *young Lesliet
rushing up the street as if he'd seen the devil himself. He had
come back panting so much that his thole body heaved and shook.
For two or three days I felt myself to be precious in the family.
I was given almost everything I wanted, but I took care not to ask
for the impossible, or for too muoh, in case the old status quo
was restored eariier than necessary.
The pool of blood was only wiped up in a perfunctory way
and after a week, when I was allowed out again, it nas still olear


on the ground. it first it was a dark red. I looke d at it
every day, and gredually it lost its clear boundaries and turned
a faint rust colour, s inking into the very texture of the pavement,
like something from the sea that collects passing colours into its
shape and absorbs them through endless tides antil they are fixed
and hard. Yet, though it had passed, so to speak, into eternity,
the mark was mine. I was proud.
I jumped up on_the slippery ledge, despite my best clothes,
and hugged the round part of the lamp-post, pulling myself up.
Then I caught hold of the gibbet-arm and began swingiag. There
was no one else playing, because it was past bedtime, and only
the theatre was keeping me up.
I could see nothing outside the silver glow of the lamp.
There were probably lights but like the wall and evergreen bushes
they seemed dust, of a dreamy substance. I couldn't oonceive that
there was another glow in the world, and all the sounds I heand--
the tram, the pausing train, the occasional footsteps that passed
in the dark on the other side of the street, a door that closed,
either introducing new footsteps to the night or muffling old ones
up--seemed to confirm that this was the only glow there was, and
to prepare with little preliminary statements the evening I was
going to hare. I thought to myself that there wouldn*t possibly
be anyone in the world with such excitement before them, and that
any other life must be very poor. I had only been to the thestre
once before. The words seemed to be compounded of my own life.
It was like touching a life beyond the one people told me about.
I sat through the first aot with my mouth open so wide that I
found a long trickle of dribble down to my collar afterwards.
And my eyes felt strained when the lights went up as if they had
been looking right insade things with a blinding, stark, selfless


penetration.
Just as the wall and evergreen bushes were like dust, so was
the curtain I imagined going up and the shadowy players dressed in :
very bright colours, passing to and fro, talking a kind of dusty
talk, with the black theatre all about, hushed and filled, its dark-
ness as absolute as that beyond the glow of the lamp.
Hy mother would soon call me, then I vould run into the house,
clattering up the stairs, my hands would be washed and my overcoat
pulled over my shoulders, making me sway for a moment. My father
would be walking from the bedroom to the back-room with bustling feet,
his lips set, looking for his cuff links or the hard leather glove
he wore to cover his missing hand, which had been out off in a saw
mill. Then, with his overcoat on, he would stand tying the laces
of this glove with his free hand and his teeth, 80 that his mouth
made a temporary grin, while his eyes gazed into the distance,
narrowed, dreamy, with a warm and rich, absorbed expression. Then
we would close up the small, sweltering fire in the stove and leave
the house. My parents would walk along the street with set and
rather abstract faces, as if there were sameone extra in them help-
ing to direct their footsteps. And between them I would skip now
and then, and feel the hard surfaces of their hands.
I came down from the pbat and st ood looking towards the end of
the street. Then I climbed one of the railings and half sat on
one of the sharp spikes. I jumped off as hard as I could, try ing
to reach the kerb. A long time seemed to pass during which no
sound oame. I watohed the upstairs window. Its curtains were
quite still, and the glass was shining with the light from my lemp.
But nothing happened, so I went up the lamp-post again.
It seemed late. This didn't come into my mind as a clear
proposition. It seemed to be asserted by the noises of the even-


ing, or the infrequency of them. They no longer gave support
to the glow of thé lamp, or made pronising statements about the
evening to come. l train stopped at the station and paused.
But when it groaned away again it seemed to be going anywhere, and
to be bearing people quite strange to me. lso a closing door
further down the street seemed to shut me out. and the sound of
the tram reminded me of long evenings I had spent alone in bed
waiting for my parentst sharp footsteps to sound in the street
outside, end mistaking them egain and again, realising they were
footsteps that acknowledged no part in ne, and hearing the tram
enter the silence again like something intending to bear my body
away to strangers and even enemies.
Then the window was really pulled up. A quite overpowering
Bhudder of exoitement went through me. I saw my mother lower her
head and look out, her hands on the sill. She too was vague, like
a shadow moving.
She spoke softly, *What the devil are you doing up there?
Just you get down at once." But her voice seemed to give me
permission to do it. Then she said, 'Te'll have to go another
night. Touy brother couldn*t get the tiokets.'
There was a pause, while I swung a little more, and she added,
as if she were regretfully closing the evening for me, 'Come on now,
jump down like a good boy.'
I hugged the post ând lorered myself, then dropped to the
ground. The shadowy players seemed to go away to the end of the
street. Everything was dust as before but it was divided into
seperate elements now---the wall, tha bushes, the lamp and the
window opposite. Ly mother's head disappeared and the sashes
made their sad trembling little song. I walked to the edge of


the kerb and was aware of being a child among other children.
There vere lights which I hadn't noticed before---yellom and plush
cquares of light from windous with their ourtains drawn; and
whenever a tram passed at the end of the street it nade a sustained
flash, like a frightening warship floating in the sky.
As I walked avay from the lemp I looked down and saw the
derk, rusty blood on the pavement at my feet, like a breath that
had made an everlasting mark. I was gled I had mentioned it to
no one, lest they should have tried to rub it aray.
RomapIe0