What if I, alone among them all, had never found out?
XIV
KING
There was a certain white sugar bear and a red candy strawberry which we had been charged not to eat, because the strawberry was a nameless scarlet and the bear, left from Christmas, was a very soiled bear. We had all looked at these two things longingly, had even on occasion nibbled them a bit. There came a day when I crept under my bed and ate them both.
It was a bed with slats. In the slat immediately above my head there was a knot-hole. Knot-hole, slat, the pattern of the ticking on the mattress, all remain graven on the moment. It was the first time that I had actually been conscious of—indeed, had almost heard—the fighting going on within me.
Something was saying: “Oh, eat it, eat it. What do you care? It won’t kill you. It may not even make you sick. It is good. Eat it.”
And something else, something gentle, insistent, steady, kept saying over and over in exactly the same tone, and so that I did not know whether the warning came from within or without:—
“It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten.”
But after a little, as I ate, this voice ceased.
Nobody knew that I had eaten the forbidden bear and strawberry. Grandmother Beers squeezed my hand just the same. Mother was as tender as always. And Father—his kind eyes and some little jest with me were almost more than I could bear. I remember spending the evening near them, with something sore about the whole time. From the moment that it began to get dark the presence of bear and strawberry came and fastened themselves upon me, so that I delayed bed-going even more than usual, and interminably prolonged undressing.