Completely given up to the tragedy she had quite simply relegated the actor to his proper place.
* * *
One Good Friday she took me to Notre Dame to hear the sermon on the Passion.
Spring had come in April. The moon when we arrived was mounting toward the open sky just above the towers of the old cathedral, bathed in the blue of the pure night. Inside, the crowd was so great that we could not reach a church-warden’s pew, and with great difficulty I got a chair for her at the back, in the midst of the throng.
The voice of the preacher, which had sounded thin to me as we entered, reached us, distinct, insistent and powerful. It carried with it the generosity of a heart that gives itself until it is exhausted. It filled the immense edifice to the very shadows at the back, shadows which covered also the transepts and the upper vaulting, making the lighted portions of the church seem menaced by it on all sides.
We heard the story of the Mount of Olives. The Disciples went to sleep while Jesus was enduring His agony. Likewise, about us and within us, the moral life of others and ourselves suffers while we sleep. Later, too late, when I awakened from my cruel sleep, I was destined to recall with bitterness that warning which I had not heeded. We saw about us all the visible and varied forms of cowardice, the cowardice of the official, of the judge, of the crowd, of friends. All the truth of human character shines out in the Gospel. In this series of denials, one can see his own denying, just as one instinctively feels his pockets when he hears the cry of “Thief.” I alone, perhaps, of those present, gave the ceremony the interest of the mere amateur.
Next to us, an old news man, who had stopped his shouting only at the door, crowding in through several rows of chairs, stood still, suddenly captive, with his pile of papers under his arm. It was the death of Righteousness. He uttered a long sob of indignation and pity, like a half-uttered howl, held out his free arm before him in an involuntary gesture, and then went away again upon his route. Outside once more he tried to cry his papers, but emotion still gripped his throat. For an instant he had offered himself to God. I have never known that instant; I have never made that offering. It was now I who was callous.
When we left, the moon, detached from the towers, was sailing through the open sky. The clear night, so blue and pure, enveloped the sombre cathedral. Ranged along one side of the square the waiting automobiles quivered incongruously at the foot of the old black building.
At last, we found our carriage. “Was it not beautiful?” Raymonde asked immediately.
I agreed without interest, from courtesy, instead of giving way to my emotions as I had been invited to do. For a second short space of time, I surprised her in the act of trembling. Still, I continued to believe in her apathy, her reputation for it was so well established. When one holds to the judgment of the world one can not appreciate his own fireside.