I don’t know what would have become of me if I had not been a reading boy. My lessons done I would have had nothing to do but sit and watch the awful stillness of the sick-room flow out through the closed white door and coldly enfold my scared heart. I suppose that in a futile childish way I would have gone crazy. But I was a reading boy. There were many books about, lying on consoles, on tables, and even on the floor, for we had not had time to settle down. I read! What did I not read! Sometimes the eldest nun gliding up and casting a mistrustful glance at the open pages would lay her hand lightly on my head and suggest in a doubtful whisper: “Perhaps it isn’t very good for you to read these books.” I would raise my eyes to her face mutely and with a vague gesture of giving it up she would glide away. Later in the evening, but not always, I would be permitted to tiptoe into the sick-room to say good-night to the figure prone on the bed which often could not recognise my presence but by a slow movement of the eyes, put my lips dutifully to the nerveless hand lying on the coverlet, and tiptoe out again. Then I would go to bed, in a room at the end of a corridor, and often, not always, cry myself into a good, sound sleep. I looked forward to what was coming with an incredulous terror. I turned my eyes from it, sometimes with success; and yet all the time I had an awful sensation of the inevitable. I had also moments of revolt which stripped off me some of my simple trust in the government of the universe. But when the inevitable entered the sick-room and the white door was thrown wide open, I don’t think I found a single tear to shed. I have a suspicion that the Canon’s housekeeper looked upon me as the most callous little wretch on earth. The day of the funeral came in due course, and all the generous “Youth of the Schools,” the grave Senate of the University, the delegations of the trade-guilds, might have obtained (if they cared) _de visu_ evidence of the callousness of the little wretch. There was nothing in my aching head but a few words, some such stupid sentences as: “It’s done,” or “It’s accomplished” (in Polish it is much shorter), or something of the sort, repeating itself endlessly. The long procession moved on out of the little street, down a long street, past the Gothic portal of St. Mary’s between its unequal towers, towards the Florian Gate.