Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/244

 grew thin, and complained of headaches. As I was treated differently from the other children, my complaints resulted in my going to school only now and then on visits. I thought my fellow-pupils coarse and rude; they jeered at me, examined and felt me all over, and made me feel like a man who has fallen among a herd of monkeys. They drank up my little bottle of wine which the doctor had prescribed for my anemia, pulled my sandwiches out of my pocket, and ate the chocolate with which my mother provided me. I went home crying.

At last my parents decided to take me away from school altogether. For whole days I played in the nursery, and my laughter once more rang through the house.

Then I was sent to the High School. Favouritism continued to shelter me; I was not forced to work, and spent most of the school hours in playing tric-trac under the desk with my neighbour. My masters unanimously declared that I was a genius, but lacked application.

When I was thirteen, my father was given an appointment in Prague. This change in my surroundings was the first rung on the ladder of those misfortunes to which fate has