. . a thousand other things came
crowding around him.
Then, as his father's voice continued, out from the background there
came his own figure, a small, pale, excited boy in short trousers.
He was immensely excited--that was the principal thing. It was
evening, the house seemed to swim in candlelight and smoke through
which things could be seen only dimly.
Something wonderful was about to happen to him. He was in a state of
glory, very close to God, so close that he could almost see Him
sitting with His long white beard in the middle of a cloud, watching
Martin with interest and affection. He was pleased with Martin and
Martin was pleased with himself. At the same time as his pleasure he
was aware that the stuff of his new black trousers tickled his knees
and that he was hungry.
He saw his small sister Amy for a moment and expressed quite
effectively by a smile and nod of the head his immeasurable
superiority to her . . .
They, he and his father, drove in a cab to the Chapel. Of what
followed then he was now less aware. He remembered that he was in a
small room with two men, that they all took off their clothes (he
remembered that one man, very stout and red, looked funny without
his clothes), that they put on long white night-shirts, that his was
too long for him and that he tripped over it, that they all three
walked down the centre of the Chapel, which was filled with eyes,
mouths and boots, and that he was very conscious of his toe-nails,
which had never been exposed in public before, that they came to a
round stone place filled with water and into this after the two men
he was dipped, that he didn't scream from the coldness, of the water
although he wanted to, that he was wrapped in a blanket and finally
carried home in an ecstasy of triumph.
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