She knew if she let go the boy he would dash to the door.
Already he had run home once out of her class. So she snatched
her cane from the desk, and brought it down on him. He was
writhing and kicking. She saw his face beneath her, white, with
eyes like the eyes of a fish, stony, yet full of hate and
horrible fear. And she loathed him, the hideous writhing thing
that was nearly too much for her. In horror lest he should
overcome her, and yet at the heart quite calm, she brought down
the cane again and again, whilst he struggled making
inarticulate noises, and lunging vicious kicks at her. With one
hand she managed to hold him, and now and then the cane came
down on him. He writhed, like a mad thing. But the pain of the
strokes cut through his writhing, vicious, coward's courage, bit
deeper, till at last, with a long whimper that became a yell, he
went limp. She let him go, and he rushed at her, his teeth and
eyes glinting. There was a second of agonized terror in her
heart: he was a beast thing. Then she caught him, and the cane
came down on him. A few times, madly, in a frenzy, he lunged and
writhed, to kick her. But again the cane broke him, he sank with
a howling yell on the floor, and like a beaten beast lay there
yelling.
Mr. Harby had rushed up towards the end of this
performance.
"What's the matter?" he roared.
Ursula felt as if something were going to break in her.
"I've thrashed him," she said, her breast heaving, forcing
out the words on the last breath. The headmaster stood choked
with rage, helpless. She looked at the writhing, howling figure
on the floor.
"Get up," she said. The thing writhed away from her. She took
a step forward. She had realized the presence of the headmaster
for one second, and then she was oblivious of it again.
"Get up," she said. And with a little dart the boy was on his
feet. His yelling dropped to a mad blubber. He had been in a
frenzy.
"Go and stand by the radiator," she said.
As if mechanically, blubbering, he went.
The headmaster stood robbed of movement or speech. His face
was yellow, his hands twitched convulsively. But Ursula stood
stiff not far from him. Nothing could touch her now: she was
beyond Mr. Harby. She was as if violated to death.
The headmaster muttered something, turned, and went down the
room, whence, from the far end, he was heard roaring in a mad
rage at his own class.
The boy blubbered wildly by the radiator. Ursula looked at
the class. There were fifty pale, still faces watching her, a
hundred round eyes fixed on her in an attentive, expressionless
stare.