By this time Ling’s father had grown stern with him: and the boy’s hatred deepened. But still he never gave it expression. This was not only a matter of self-control: it was a curious defect in the hatred itself. When alone he might be filled with the white fervour of parricide; but whenever he faced his father a look or a word would prick his rage as if it was a bladder, and leave him humiliated, utterly without its support (acting rather like the push the gate-keeper gave the crowd). When he was twelve, without warning or any open quarrel, Ling ran away. He worked here and there, now at this, now at that: being bitten by a restless spirit that made him always move on, from Hunan into Kiangsi, eastward from the wild and wooded hills into the red loam country near Nanchang. It was on that road he saw his first motor-bus. It was not one of a regular service, but a lone one, far from its fellows, plying wherever a sufficiency of passengers wanted to go.
