5
They were singing a hymn. The people near her had not moved. Nobody had moved. The whole church was sitting down, singing a hymn. What wonderful people.... Like a sort of tea-party ... everybody sitting about—not sitting up to the table ... happy and comfortable.
Emma had found her place and handed her a big hymn-book with the score.
There was time for Miriam to read the first line and recognise the original of “Now thank we all our God” before the singing had reached the third syllable. She hung over the book. “Nun—dank—et—Al—le—Gott.” Now—thank—all—God. She read that first line again and felt how much better the thing was without the “we” and the “our.” What a perfect phrase.... The hymn rolled on and she recognised that it was the tune she knew—the hard square tune she and Eve had called it—and Harriett used to mark time to it in jerks, a jerk to each syllable, with a twisted glove-finger tip just under the book ledge with her left hand, towards Miriam. But sung as these Germans sang it, it did not jerk at all. It did not sound like a “proclamation” or an order. It was ... somehow ... everyday. The notes seemed to hold her up. This was—Luther—Germany—the Reformation—solid and quiet. She glanced up and then hung more closely over her book. It was the stained-glass windows that made the Schloss Kirche so dark. One movement of her head showed her that all the windows within sight were dark with rich colour, and there was oak everywhere—great shelves and galleries and juttings of dark wood, great carved masses and a high dim roof and strange spaces of light; twilight, and light like moonlight and people, not many people, a troop, a little army under the high roof, with the great shadows all about them. “Nun danket alle Gott.” There was nothing to object to in that. Everybody could say that. Everybody—Fräulein, Gertrude, all these little figures in the church, the whole world. “Now thank, all, God!” ... Emma and Marie were chanting on either side of her. Immediately behind her sounded the quavering voice of an old woman. They all felt it. She must remember that.... Think of it every day.