Gradually, reluctantly, the teaching staff was forced to change its approach. They substituted convincing fictions for the truth. They said the tents were temporary, that they had gone into the countryside on an excursion, and such like. After these new explanations, which the children accepted more readily, they reconciled themselves to the hardships and bore for a while the humiliating adjustments imposed on them… For a while… Because when they realized that the “excursion” was being prolonged for days and weeks, months, they became fretful again, they demanded their rooms, their toys, their comfort… Then many more began to arrive in the “countryside”, in thousands, and to pitch new tents around theirs. The place filled with “excursionists”, who seemed unhappy, angry, ashamed. It was an
