Descend, thou glorious Mother, from thy hall,
Thou wondrous Queen, mother of God.
The earth and the sky had become one. In the heavenly countenance, radiant as the sun, the countenance of the woman with glowing eyes and fiery wings, Saint Sophia, the Wisdom of God, he saw a countenance familiar to him upon earth, one he longed yet feared to recognise. He rose and went further into the wood. How long and how far he no longer remembered. At last he saw a small round lake; the steep banks covered with firs were reflected in the water like one uninterrupted green wall. The water, thick as resin, green as the pine needles, was so still it was hardly noticeable, and seemed an opening into Hades. On a stone, close to the water, sat the young novice Sophia. He recognised, and yet saw she was a stranger. She had a wreath of white flowers on her flowing hair, the black habit was a little raised, her bare white feet were dipping in the water, her eyes had a drunken look in them. And gently swaying to and fro, looking at the underground kingdom of the water, she sang a gentle song, one of those which are sung on St. John’s eve at the old revels among the bonfires:—
Loved sun, so fair and bright,
Old, old Lado! Old, old Lado!
Dear flowers bursting in the night,
Old, old Lado! Old, old Lado!
Earth, earth, fertile Mother of all.
There was something ancient and wild in this song, which recalled the sad plaintive notes of a yellow-hammer in the lifeless hush of noon before a storm. “A water nymph!” thought he, daring neither to move nor breathe. A twig snapped under his foot. The young girl turned round, shrieked, jumped off the stone and fled back to the wood. Nothing remained save the ever widening circles round the wreath which had fallen into the water. He felt terrified as if he had really witnessed a sylvan apparition, an infernal mystery. And remembering the human likeness in the heavenly countenance, he recognised Sister Sophia, and the prayer to the “Mother of all” seemed a mockery. He never confided to anybody what he had seen near the Round Lake, but the vision often returned to his mind, and in spite of all his struggles against this temptation he could not overcome it; at times even in his purest prayers he would see the human face as it were through the heavenly countenance.
And now Sophia, continuing to look at the flames with a fixed and wistful gaze, was singing about St. Cyros, the child martyr, whom the infidel king Maximian had cast into a glowing furnace.