At the altar the
silver-haired bishop turned his scholarly face upon her, full of
tenderness; and when he spoke, his voice seemed an assurance of peace
and purity. The service was long. In France one listens to a sermon
when one is married, and the pretty bridesmaids came round for three
collections. The bishop talked of her father, his friend, who had died
under cruel circumstances. Shoulders heaved in the congregation, and in
a dark corner a sob was stifled.
"You have suffered, my children. There has been a mighty mowing and a
winter of death, and our mother the earth has lain barren. But today
stand up, O children, and listen and feel. We are united in these ruins
by more than sorrow. What are these pulsations that beat this day upon
our soul?"
The words flowed on following the ancient grooves of sermons, but the
loving voice thrilled us. It floated through the dim atmosphere into our
consciousness, holding us as in a dream, dovelike and soothing.
My eyes trailed to the delicate bride kneeling beside a great cracked
column, and I thought of the tiny blossom again by the road, and of
those stretches without the town, no longer gray, but brushed with new
color. I saw the daisies and the grasses waving out on No Man's Land:
like heralding banners of the triumph march they waved, leading out of
sight beyond the horizon. And as the priest talked, my heart throbbed
its own silent canticle:
"Joy in the new dawned day, and in peace-awakened fields.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25