The Door in the Wall and Other Stories | Page 7

of my father's house.
"That is as well as I can remember my vision of that garden--the garden
that haunts me still. Of course, I can convey nothing of that
indescribable quality of translucent unreality, that difference from the
common things of experience that hung about it all; but that--that is

what happened. If it was a dream, I am sure it was a day-time and
altogether extraordinary dream . . . . . . H'm!--naturally there followed a
terrible questioning, by my aunt, my father, the nurse, the
governess--everyone . . . . . .
"I tried to tell them, and my father gave me my first thrashing for
telling lies. When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished me
again for my wicked persistence. Then, as I said, everyone was
forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word about it. Even my fairy tale
books were taken away from me for a time--because I was 'too
imaginative.' Eh? Yes, they did that! My father belonged to the old
school . . . . . And my story was driven back upon myself. I whispered
it to my pillow--my pillow that was often damp and salt to my
whispering lips with childish tears. And I added always to my official
and less fervent prayers this one heartfelt request: 'Please God I may
dream of the garden. Oh! take me back to my garden! Take me back to
my garden!'
"I dreamt often of the garden. I may have added to it, I may have
changed it; I do not know . . . . . All this you understand is an attempt to
reconstruct from fragmentary memories a very early experience.
Between that and the other consecutive memories of my boyhood there
is a gulf. A time came when it seemed impossible I should ever speak
of that wonder glimpse again."
I asked an obvious question.
"No," he said. "I don't remember that I ever attempted to find my way
back to the garden in those early years. This seems odd to me now, but
I think that very probably a closer watch was kept on my movements
after this misadventure to prevent my going astray. No, it wasn't until
you knew me that I tried for the garden again. And I believe there was a
period --incredible as it seems now--when I forgot the garden
altogether--when I was about eight or nine it may have been. Do you
remember me as a kid at Saint Athelstan's?"
"Rather!"
"I didn't show any signs did I in those days of having a secret dream?"
II
He looked up with a sudden smile.
"Did you ever play North-West Passage with me? . . . . . No, of course
you didn't come my way!"

"It was the sort of game," he went on, "that every imaginative child
plays all day. The idea was the discovery of a North-West Passage to
school. The way to school was plain enough; the game consisted in
finding some way that wasn't plain, starting off ten minutes early in
some almost hopeless direction, and working one's way round through
unaccustomed streets to my goal. And one day I got entangled among
some rather low-class streets on the other side of Campden Hill, and I
began to think that for once the game would be against me and that I
should get to school late. I tried rather desperately a street that seemed
a cul de sac, and found a passage at the end. I hurried through that with
renewed hope. 'I shall do it yet,' I said, and passed a row of frowsy little
shops that were inexplicably familiar to me, and behold! there was my
long white wall and the green door that led to the enchanted garden!
"The thing whacked upon me suddenly. Then, after all, that garden, that
wonderful garden, wasn't a dream!" . . . .
He paused.
"I suppose my second experience with the green door marks the world
of difference there is between the busy life of a schoolboy and the
infinite leisure of a child. Anyhow, this second time I didn't for a
moment think of going in straight away. You see . . . For one thing my
mind was full of the idea of getting to school in time--set on not
breaking my record for punctuality. I must surely have felt SOME little
desire at least to try the door--yes, I must have felt that . . . . . But I
seem to remember the attraction of the door mainly as another obstacle
to my overmastering determination to get to school. I was immediately
interested by this discovery I had made, of course--I went on with my
mind full of it--but I went on. It