A Separate Peace

by John Knowles

In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, I had always felt that the Devon School came into existence the day I entered it, was vibrantly real while I was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day I left.

He got away with everything because of the extraordinary kind of person he was. It was quite a compliment to me, as a matter of fact, to have such a person choose me for his best friend.

The beach was hours away by bicycle, forbidden, completely out of all bounds. Going there risked expulsion, destroyed the studying I was going to do for an important test the next morning, blasted the reasonable amount of order I wanted to maintain in my life, and it also involved the kind of long, labored bicycle ride I hated. “All right,” I said.

His face was furious, but his eyes denied the fury; instead they saw it before them. They were filled with terror.

As a last defense I had always taken refuge in a scornful superiority, based on nothing.

My brief burst of animosity, lasting only a second, a part of a second, something which came before I could recognize it and was gone before I knew it had possessed me, what was that in the midst of this holocaust?

I could not escape a feeling that this was my own funeral, and you do not cry in that case.

Down there I fell into step as well as my nature, Phineas-filled, would allow.