1 Not a hand moved in that hall, as we spoke, nor an eye.
2 We found the sleeping hall and we stood in awe upon its threshold.
3 And we who were fifteen and all the Teachers came into the great hall.
4 The sound of their voices brought silence to the hall and to beat of our heart.
5 The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
6 The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
7 There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets.
8 The Council of Vocations came on the first day of spring, and they sat in the great hall.
9 The sleeping halls there were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
10 We walked through empty passages and into the great hall where the World Council of Scholars sat in solemn meeting.
11 Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder.
12 Then it was as if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened.
13 So we were reprimanded tonight, in the dining hall, for without knowing it we had begun to sing aloud some tune we had never heard.
14 The shadow on the sundial marks off a half-hour while we dress and eat our breakfast in the dining hall, where there are five long tables with twenty clay plates and twenty clay cups on each table.