“Robin,” she said, “oh, we must go in by the water, just like those other pilgrims who came to town. You know that part at the last where it says, ‘And so many went over the water and were let in at the golden gates to-day.’ Let us go over the water and be let in at the golden gates. But the water we shall go over won’t be dark and bitter; it will be blue and splendid, and the sun will be shining everywhere. Ah, Rob, how can it be true that we are here!”
They knew all about the great arch of entrance and stately peristyle. They had read in the newspapers all about its height and the height of the statues adorning it; they knew how many columns formed the peristyle, but it was not height or breadth or depth or width they remembered. The picture which remained with them and haunted them like a fair dream was of a white and splendid archway, crowned with one of the great stories of the world in marble—the triumph of the man in whom the god was so strong that his dreams, the working of his mind, his strength, his courage, his suffering, wrested from the silence of the Unknown a new and splendid world. It was this great white arch they always thought of, with this precious marble story crowning it, the blue, blue water spread before the stately columns at its side, and the City Beautiful within the courts it guarded. And it was to this they were going when they found their way to the boat which would take them to it.
It was such a heavenly day of June! The water was so amethystine, the sky such a vault of rapture! What did it matter to them that they were jostled and crowded, and counted for nothing among those about them? What did it matter that there were often near them common faces, speaking of nothing but common, stupid pleasure or common sharpness and greed? What did it matter that scarcely any one saw what they saw, or, seeing it, realized its splendid, hopeful meaning? Little recked they of anything but the entrancement of blue sky and water, and the City Beautiful they were drawing near to.
When first out of the blueness there rose the fair shadow of the whiteness, they sprang from their seats, and, hand in hand, made their way to the side, and there stood watching, as silent as if they did not dare to speak lest it should melt away; and from a fair white spirit it grew to a real thing—more white, more fair, more stately, and more an enchanted thing than even they had believed or hoped.
And the crowd surged about them, and women exclaimed and men talked, and there was a rushing to and fro, and the ringing of a bell, and movement and action and excitement were on every side. But somehow these two children stood hand in hand and only looked.
And their dream had come true, though it had been a child’s dream of an enchanted thing.
XI
They passed beneath the snow-white stateliness of the great arch, still hand in hand, and silent. They walked softly, almost as if they felt themselves treading upon holy ground. To their youth and unworn souls it was like holy ground, they had so dreamed of it, they had so longed for it, it had been so mingled in their minds with the story of a city not of this world.
And they stood within the court beyond the archway, the fair and noble colonnade, its sweep of columns, statue-crowned, behind them, the wonder of the City Beautiful spread before. The water of blue lagoons lapped the bases of white palaces, as if with a caress of homage to their beauty. On every side these marvels stood; everywhere there was the green of sward and broad-leaved plants, the sapphire of water, the flood of color and human life passing by, and above it all and enclosing it, the warm, deep, splendid blueness of the summer sky.
It was so white—it was so full of the marvel of color—it was so strange—it was so radiant and unearthly in its beauty.