At first this happy sense of being completely satisfied seemed shed upon me by shaped space. In no other building have I had this exact feeling, that space had surely taken an inevitable form and was announcing itself to me. I stood beneath the great dome, one hundred and seventy-nine feet in height, and as I gazed upward I felt both possessed and released.
THE ROYAL GATE LEADING TO THE OLD SERAGLIO
For a long time I was fully aware of nothing but the vast harmony of Santa Sophia, descending upon me, wrapping me round. I saw moving figures, tiny, yet full of meaning, passing in luminous distances, pausing, bending, kneeling; a ray of light falling upon a white turban; an Arab in a long pink robe leaning against a column of dusky red porphyry; a dove circling under the dome as if under the sky. But I could not be strongly conscious of any detail, or be enchanted by any separate beauty. I was in the grasp of the perfect whole.
The voice of a child disturbed me.
Somewhere far off in the mosque a child began to sing a great tune, powerfully, fervently, but boyishly. The voice was not a treble voice; it was deeper, yet unmistakably the voice of a boy. And the melody sung was bold, indeed almost angry, and yet definitely religious. It echoed along the walls of marble, which seemed to multiply it mysteriously, adding to it wide murmurs which were carried through all the building, into the dimmest, remotest recesses. It became in my ears as the deep-toned and fanatical thunder of Islam, proclaiming possession of the church of Divine Wisdom which had been dedicated to Christ. It put me for a time definitely outside of the vast harmony. I was able at last to notice details both architectural and human.
Santa Sophia has nine gates leading to it from a great corridor or outer hall, lined with marble and roofed with old-gold mosaic. As you enter from the Porta Basilica you have an impression of pale yellow, gold, and gray; of a pervading silvery glimmer, of a pervading gleam of delicate primrose, brightly pure and warm. You hear a sound of the falling of water from the two fountains of ablution, great vases of gray marble which are just within the mosque.
Gray and gold prevail in the color scheme, a beautiful combination of which the eyes are never tired. But many hues are mingled with them: yellow and black, deep plum-color and red, green, brown, and very dark blue. The windows, which are heavily grated, have no painted glass, so the mosque is not dark. It has a sort of lovely and delicate dimness, touching as the dimness of twilight. It is divinely calm, almost as Nature can be when she would bring her healing to the unquiet human spirit. We know that during the recent war Santa Sophia was crowded with suffering fugitives, with dying soldiers and cholera patients. I feel that even upon them in their agony it must have shed rays of comfort, into their hearts a belief in a far-off compassion waiting the appointed time to make itself fully manifest.
The great dome is of gold, and of either black or very deep blue. Myriads of chandeliers, holding tiny glass cups, hang from the roof. Pale yellow matting covers the plain of the floor. The silvery glimmer comes from the thousands of cups, the primrose gleam from the matting. The walls are lined with slabs of exquisite marble of many patterns and colors. Gold mosaic decorates the roof and the domes. Galleries, supported by marble arcades, and leaning on roofs of dim gold, run round a great part of the mosque; which is subtly broken up, and made mysterious, enticing, and various by curved recesses of marble, by innumerable arches, some large and heavy, some fragile and delicate, by screens, and by forests of columns. Two-storied aisles flank the vast nave, through which men wander looking almost like little dolls. So huge is the mosque that the eyes are deceived within it, and can no longer measure heights or breadths with accuracy. When I first stood in the nave I thought the chandeliers were hanging so near to the ground that it must be dangerous for a tall man to try to pass underneath them. They are, of course, really far higher than the head of a giant.