The murmur of human voices was around him, like the rustling of trees, moved by the wind....
He smiled peacefully. It’s wonderful to be tired....
Then a voice—a voice began to speak....
Oh—sweet voice, thought Freder dreamily. Tender beloved voice, your voice, Virgin-mother! I have fallen asleep.... Yes, I am dreaming! I am dreaming of your voice, beloved!
But a slight pain at his temple made him think: I am leaning my head on stone ... I am conscious of the coldness which comes out of the stone ... I feel coldness under my knees ... so I am not sleeping—I am only dreaming ... suppose it is not a dream...? Suppose it is reality...?
With an exertion of will which brought a groan from him he forced open his eyes and looked about him.
A vault, like the vault of a sepulchre, human heads so closely crowded together as to produce the effect of clods on a freshly ploughed field. All heads turned towards one point: to the source of a light, as mild as God.
Candles burnt with sword-like flames. Slender, lustrous swords of light stood in a circle around the head of a girl, whose voice was as the Amen of God.
The voice spoke, but Freder did not hear the words. He heard nothing but a sound, the blessed melody of which was saturated with sweetness as is the air of a garden of blossoms with fragrance. And suddenly there sprang up above this melody the wild throb of a heart-beat. The air stormed with bells. The walls shook under the surf of an invisible organ. Weariness—exhaustion—faded out! He felt his body from head to foot to be one single instrument of blissfulness—all strings stretched to bursting point, yet tuned together into the purest, hottest, most radiant accord, in which his whole being hung, quivering.
He longed to stroke with his hands the stones on which he knelt. He longed to kiss with unbounded tenderness the stones on which he rested his head. God—God—God—beat the heart in his breast, and every throb was a thank-offering. He looked at the girl, and yet he did not see her. He saw only a shimmer; he knelt before it.