Can we hope that on rare occasions, perhaps late at night when the terrors crept close, he would think about how things he’d done could damage his mother’s faith, and not just in him, but in herself as well? The son, after all, is but an extension of the mother-at least so the mother believed, there in some inarticulate part of her soul, unseen yet solid as an Iron chain Assail the child and so too the mother is assailed, for what is challenged Is her life as a mother, the lessons she taught or didn’t teach, the things she chose not to see, to explain away, to pretend were otherwise than what they were.
Weep for the mother. Snell won’t and he never would, saving all his future to weep exclusively for himself. The creeping terrors awakened startling glimmers of thought, of near-empathy, but they never went so far as to lead to any self recognition, or compassion for the mother who loved him unconditionally, His nature was the kind that took whatever was given to him as if it was a birthright all of it, for ever and ever more.
Rage at injustice came when something-anything-was withheld. Things hi righteously deserved, and of course he deserved everything he wanted. All that he wanted he reached for, and oh such fury if those things eluded his grasp or were then taken away!
In the absence of what might be imposed, a child will fashion the structure of the world as it suits itself. Created from a mind barely awake-and clearly not even that when it came to introspection-that world becomes a strange place in-deed. But let us not rail at the failings of nearby adults tied by blood or whatever, Some children are born in a cage-it’s already there, in their skulls-and it’s a dark cage.
He was wandering the streets, fleeing all the cruel questions being flung at him. They had no right to accuse him like that. Oh, when he was all grown up, nobody would be allowed to get after him like this. He’d break their faces. He’d step on their heads. He’d make them afraid, every one of them, so he could go on doing whatever he liked. He couldn’t wait to get older and that was the truth.
And yet, he found himself heading for Two-Ox Gate. He needed to know, after all. Was Harllo still lying there? He hadn’t hit him so hard, had he? Enough to kill him? Only if Harllo had been born weak, only if something was wrong with him from the start. And that wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? Harllo’s own mother had thrown him away, after all. So, if Harllo was lying dead in the grasses on that hilltop, why, it wasn’t Snell’s fault, was it? Something would have killed him sooner or later.
So that was a relief, but he’d better go and find out for sure. What if Harllo hadn’t died at all? What if he was out there somewhere, planning murder? He could be spying on Snell right now!-With a knife he’d found, or a knotted stick. Quick, cunning, able to dart out of sight no matter how fast Snell spun round on the street-he was out there! Waiting, stalking.