By eleven o'clock the revolution was over. Sodden groups of men, thoroughly cowed and frightened, were on their way by back roads to the places they had left a few hours before. They had no longer dreams of empire. Behind them they could see, on the horizon, the city itself, the smoke from its chimneys, the spires of its churches. Both, homes and churches, they had meant to destroy, but behind both there was the indestructible. They had failed.
They turned, looked back, and went on.
On the crest of a hill-top overlooking the city a man was standing, looking down to where the softened towers of the great steel bridges rose above the river mist like fairy towers. Below him lay the city, powerful, significant, important.
The man saw the city only as a vast crucible, into which he had flung his all, and out of which had come only defeat and failure. But the city was not a crucible. The melting pot of a nation is not a thing of cities, but of the human soul.
The city was not a melting pot. It was a sanctuary. The man stood silent and morose, his chin dropped on his chest, and stared down.
Beside and somewhat behind him stood a woman, a somber, passionate figure, waiting passively. His eyes traveled from the city to her, and rested on her, contemptuous, thwarted, cynical.
“You fool,” he said, “I hate you, and you know it.”
But she only smiled faintly. “We'd better get away now, Jim,” she said.
He got into the car.