The sun sinks completely. The crosses, the vanes and the spires melt and vanish, the town seems to subside, grow smaller, and to press ever more closely against the dumb earth.
Above the town, an opal cloud, weirdly coloured, flares and gradually grows larger; a phosphorescent, yellowish mist settles unevenly on the grey network of closely huddled houses. The town itself no longer seems to be consumed by fire and reeking in blood—the broken lines of the roofs and walls have the appearance now of something magical, fantastic, but yet of something incomplete, not properly finished, as if he who planned this great town for men had suddenly grown tired and fallen asleep, or had lost faith, and, casting everything aside in his disappointment, had gone away, or died.
But the town lives and is possessed by an anxious longing to see itself beautiful and upraised proudly before the sun. It murmurs in a fever of many-sided desire for happiness, it is excited by a passionate will to live. Slow waves of muffled sound issue into the dark silence of the surrounding fields, and the black bowl of the sky is gradually filled with a dull, languishing light.
The boy stops, with uplifted brows, and shakes his head; then he looks boldly ahead and, staggering, walks quickly on.
The night, following him, says in the soft, kind voice of a mother:
"It is time, my son, hasten! They are waiting."
"Of course it is impossible to write it down!" said the young musician with a thoughtful smile.
Then, after a moment's silence, he folded his hands, and added, wistfully, fondly, in a low voice:
"Purest Virgin Mary! what awaits him?"