Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 66

We have had a great commotion here lately, from the fact that our third prefect has gone stark staring mad. I expected it all along, he always seemed to have the most singular antipathy to me, and I am called among the boys ‘Mr Chrea’s friend’. Ironically, of course. The first signs of madness were at Vespers the other day. I was near him & I saw him, just as the Laudate Dominum began, pull out his handkerchief and begin waving it over his head. Two of the community took him and at once led him out. They say that in his delirium he mentioned my name several times. A story is going about that before entering the society he fell in love with a maiden, but the maiden absconded with an individual named Doyle, and Mr Chrea in his despair entered the society, and the name of Doyle has ever since had an irritating effect on him. I can’t however answer for the truth of this. We are having the most detestable weather possible over here. Rain, rain, rain and nothing but rain. I shall soon at this rate die of ennui, my great comfort however is the thought of seeing you all again at Xmas.

One longs to know Mr Chrea’s fate. The deranged Prefect being led away with Conan Doyle’s name on his lips presents a vivid picture; though seemingly not disconcerting enough to lift the young student out of his ennui. (Perhaps feigned, as he hurried to send his version of the incident home before the school could dispatch its own report.)

Any ennui he felt was soon dispelled when one of England’s famous travelling menageries came to a nearby town: