The door in the wall

The Door in the Wall by H.G Wells – Summary

It all began one confidential evening, when Lionel Wallace confessed to Redmon, his old friend and narrator of the story, with a strange series of episodes he had gone through since finding The Door in the Wall for the first time. The two characters had shared the early years of school at Saint Athelstan’s College, but Lionel Wallace soon left himbehind soaring up by his intelligence.
Lionel Wallace’s mother had died and his father was a stern, preoccupied lawyer that gave him little attention, so he was left under the authoritative care of a nursery governess. One day, as a young boy of five, Wallace managed to leave his house and wander through the West Kensington roads, thanks to one of his nurse’s moment of carelessness. At the firstsight of the green door in the white wall, Wallace knew tat the door was unfastened, be he dared not go in. He thought his father wouldn’t approve of it. Instead, he strolled through the street, pretending to be interested in what the other dirty shops in the block had to offer. But when he couldn’t hold his temptation any longer, the young boy made a run for it and walked through the door.
Thecharacter found himself in a garden made of perfect colors and light. The air of the place made him feel extremely happy and relaxed, as bad things seemed impossible to happen. He walked through a long wide path with flowers in its borders, and two spotted panthers where playing there with a ball. One of them even allowed him to rub its soft fur. As he continued walking, he met a tall, beautifulfair girl who told him pleasant things as they followed the steps that lead to a great avenue. On their way, a kind and grinning Capuchin monkey leapt to his shoulder and remained with them. He later found playmates, with whom he played delightful games in a grass covered court. But all the loving and laughing ended when a somber dark woman carrying a book took him aside to a gallery above a hall.The tall girl and his playmates stopped the games and watched him sadly having to part. The woman and Wallace sat in the gallery, and she showed him the book, which amazingly showed Wallace the story of his life. The pages of the book weren’t pictures, but reality, as people moved and things came and went in them. Wallace began to skip the pages to see more, marveled by the magic of the book, andwhen he came to the part that showed him hesitating behind the green door, what followed was unexpected. There was no enchanted garden, or panthers or any girl. The page pictured him back in a long grey street in West Kensington, weeping for his beloved playmates. An old benevolent gentleman saw he was lost and brought a kind young policeman that took him to his father’s home. A questioning wasfollowed by his aunt, father and governess, and he was punished for telling lies. Everyone was forbidden to listen to him and even his fairly tale books were taken away from him. At nigh, Wallace prayed to God to dream and take him back to the garden, but it wasn’t the same. He didn’t remember if during his early years he tried to find his way back to the garden, suspecting it had probably been forbeing under a closer watch of his movements.
His next encounter with the door in the wall was around the age of eight or nine. He was playing North-West Passage, trying to find an alternative way to school from an almost hopeless direction. The character got entangled on the other side of Campden Hill and realized he would soon be late for school. In a hurry to find his way back, he found apassage that led him once again to the block of dirty shops where the white wall and the green door laid. This second experience with the door marked the great difference there was between the busy life of a schoolboy and the infinite leisure of a child, as Wallace decided not to enter it because it would break his record of punctuality in school.
Even though he had gone right by it and left it...