The archbishop’s face went white, and he grasped the spurred foot of the Maid for support. He closed his eyes, and his lips moved spasmodically. Then they parted in a smile of such celestial beauty that the old vitrier, standing at his feet, averted his eye as though unable to bear the sight.
The large central door of the cathedral swung open, and four men, carrying a litter on which lay a gray, motionless form, emerged. They were followed by others in what seemed an endless procession, gently bearing their burdens through the showers of flying pieces of granite statuary and structure stone which the shells were cleaving from the façade.
The flames that were devouring the roof rose in a dull roar; a great bomb crashed through the hallowed walls, and fell on the palace, where it exploded with terrific force.
The archbishop looked silently at the ruin of his home, then he concentrated his attention on the stream of wounded still flowing from the mutilated pile, and directed and guided the movements of the rescuers. When the last of the sufferers had been removed to a place of safety, he stepped down from the pedestal and, entering a little house on the other side of the Square, mounted the stairs until he reached a small room which faced the east.
He entered and, softly closing the door, walked to the window, from which the glass had fallen. Kneeling down in the chill morning air he gazed out at the blackened, smoking husk, his soul in his eyes, as one kneels by the bedside of all that life holds dear, waiting with bated breath for the final dissolution of soul from body with the dull knowledge that, with the passing of that spirit, the light of the world is extinguished.
Still he watches, noting day by day the destruction by wanton shells of one of man’s most glorious tributes to God, ever with the patient look of suffering on his face, as though the prayer from ceaseless repetition had crystallized on his brain:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
Emily W. Scott.
THE TRAWNBEIGHS
The Trawnbeighs were the sort of people who “dressed for dinner” even when, as sometimes happened, they had no dinner in the house to dress for. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the Trawnbeighs were English. Indeed, on looking back, I often feel that to my first apparently flippant statement it is unnecessary to add anything. For to one who knew Mr. and Mrs. Trawnbeigh, Edwina, Violet, Maud and Cyril, it was the first and last word on them; their alpha and omega, together with all that went between. Not that the statement is flippant, far from it. There is in it a seriousness, a profundity, an immense philosophic import. At times it has almost moved me to lift my hat, very much as one does for reason of state, or religion, or death.