THE MORNING WATCH
145
came over everything during Holy Week and it might be that Willard
felt this and was made uneasy by it. But mainly it must be just that he
was much too grown-up to be able to stand all the silly rules, and
tame hours, and good behavior, that were expected of living in a
school; he must be even gladder than the little boys were to grab
at any chance to break out of that routine, especially anything that
would give
him
an excuse for staying up so long after hours. And
yet, Richard reflected, Willard needed and took an awful lot of
sleep, dropping off in dull classrooms or wherever he had to sit still,
except for eating, as easily as a colored man or a dog. But maybe all
that sleep was why he was able to be awake now, though as a mat–
ter of fact he wasn't really more than half awake, not nearly as wide
awake as Richard felt. But then probably he had been up all night,
and probably it wasn't for the first time in
his
life either.
In some way which it did not occur to
him
to think about or
try
to understand, Richard felt a warm rich comforting kind of
pride in him and sense of glory as he watched him, as much, in a far
quieter and even happier way, as when he watched his almost magical
ability in sports; and he began to feel a sense of honor and privilege in
having this surprising chance to be so near him and to watch him so
closely, to really see him. For normally, when Willard was not play–
ing or practicing or sleeping or eating, he was kidding with some–
body, in a loudly reckless, crazy way which was a pleasure to see be–
cause everything Willard did was a pleasure to see, but was im–
possible to see through; but now he wasn't kidding at all, only
talking quietly and steadily like a grown man, among others whom
he treated as grown men. He was finishing up about his gran,d–
father who had come over from Switzerland to settle way back on
the Mountain and who had never bothered to learn much English,
and he was saying the few words and phrases of German he
him–
self knew, and Richard was deeply impressed in realizing that Willard,
who always seemed to him to know about as little as anyone could,
except as an athlete and captain of genius and a powerful and ex–
perienced man, actually knew words
in
a foreign language. He
him–
self was accustomed to feel a good deal of complacency because with
Father Fish's help he had learned several hundred words of French,
but now he felt ashamed of himself, and resolved to learn German,
which seemed to him a much more virile language.
