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The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Book, page 61 / 181


was all plain that he had proceeded according to
very correct and commendable rules. His ac-
tions had been sagacious things. They had been
full of strategy. They were the work of a mas-
ter's legs.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The
brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won.
He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind
ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had
betrayed him. He had been overturned and
crushed by their lack of sense in holding the po-
sition, when intelligent deliberation would have
convinced them that it was impossible. He, the
enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had
fled because of his superior perceptions and
knowledge. He felt a great anger against his
comrades. He knew it could be proved that
they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when
later he appeared in camp. His mind heard
howls of derision. Their density would not en-
able them to understand his sharper point of
view.

He began to pity himself acutely. He was
ill used. He was trodden beneath the feet of an
iron injustice. He had proceeded with wisdom
and from the most righteous motives under
heaven's blue only to be frustrated by hateful
circumstances.

A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fel-
lows, war in the abstract, and fate grew within
him. He shambled along with bowed head, his
brain in a tumult of agony and despair. When
he looked loweringly up, quivering at each
sound, his eyes had the expression of those of
a criminal who thinks his guilt and his pun-

 
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