but I doubt if they ever
so much as wondered: all that the boys know
(for they are boys still, in spite
of the preposterous privileges
they enjoy)
is
that
he failed, one day, to turn up
for no particular reason, and that by
the following morning's class
he was of course
replaced
-
the opposite
of the usual
scholastic situation:
according to their practice in these halls
the pupils are stationary
and the masters succeed one another–
provisionally;
now it
is,
simply, my turn.
However, this being their festival
season, our lessons today
were suspended, the Court, like all the rest,
eagerly taking
part in their terrible Games
(as they call them), and even from this far
away - holed up in an odd
corner: no one would think to find me here–
I can tell the cries
of the victims (not the ones
under the knife, but those waiting to go)
from the continuous roar
of the 'players,' my dear, who have not yet
had their fill of blood.
Without, therefore, my functions
to attend to, and the Princes attending
to
theirs,
it seemed the one time,
or never, to pry beyond these precincts
apportioned to me.
So this morning, at the mere
start of their madness, I left my lodgings
(too near the noise, anyway,
