Christ in Flanders | Page 9

spot, where for long
afterwards (so it was said) the footprints of Jesus Christ could be seen
in the sand; but in 1793, at the time of the French invasion, the monks
carried away this precious relic, that bore witness to the Saviour's last
visit to earth.

There at the convent I found myself shortly after the Revolution of
1830. I was weary of life. If you had asked me the reason of my despair,
I should have found it almost impossible to give it, so languid had
grown the soul that was melted within me. The west wind had

slackened the springs of my intelligence. A cold gray light poured
down from the heavens, and the murky clouds that passed overhead
gave a boding look to the land; all these things, together with the
immensity of the sea, said to me, "Die to-day or die to-morrow, still
must we not die?" And then--I wandered on, musing on the doubtful
future, on my blighted hopes. Gnawed by these gloomy thoughts, I
turned mechanically into the convent church, with the gray towers that
loomed like ghosts though the sea mists. I looked round with no
kindling of the imagination at the forest of columns, at the slender
arches set aloft upon the leafy capitals, a delicate labyrinth of sculpture.
I walked with careless eyes along the side aisles that opened out before
me like vast portals, ever turning upon their hinges. It was scarcely
possible to see, by the dim light of the autumn day, the sculptured
groinings of the roof, the delicate and clean-cut lines of the mouldings
of the graceful pointed arches. The organ pipes were mute. There was
no sound save the noise of my own footsteps to awaken the mournful
echoes lurking in the dark chapels. I sat down at the base of one of the
four pillars that supported the tower, near the choir. Thence I could see
the whole of the building. I gazed, and no ideas connected with it arose
in my mind. I saw without seeing the mighty maze of pillars, the great
rose windows that hung like a network suspended as by a miracle in air
above the vast doorways. I saw the doors at the end of the side aisles,
the aerial galleries, the stained glass windows framed in archways,
divided by slender columns, fretted into flower forms and trefoil by
fine filigree work of carved stone. A dome of glass at the end of the
choir sparkled as if it had been built of precious stones set cunningly. In
contrast to the roof with its alternating spaces of whiteness and color,
the two aisles lay to right and left in shadow so deep that the faint gray
outlines of their hundred shafts were scarcely visible in the gloom. I
gazed at the marvelous arcades, the scroll-work, the garlands, the
curving lines, and arabesques interwoven and interlaced, and strangely
lighted, until by sheer dint of gazing my perceptions became confused,
and I stood upon the borderland between illusion and reality, taken in
the snare set for the eyes, and almost light-headed by reason of the
multitudinous changes of the shapes about me.
Imperceptibly a mist gathered about the carven stonework, and I only
beheld it through a haze of fine golden dust, like the motes that hover

in the bars of sunlight slanting through the air of a chamber. Suddenly
the stone lacework of the rose windows gleamed through this vapor
that had made all forms so shadowy. Every moulding, the edges of
every carving, the least detail of the sculpture was dipped in silver. The
sunlight kindled fires in the stained windows, their rich colors sent out
glowing sparks of light. The shafts began to tremble, the capitals were
gently shaken. A light shudder as of delight ran through the building,
the stones were loosened in their setting, the wall- spaces swayed with
graceful caution. Here and there a ponderous pier moved as solemnly
as a dowager when she condescends to complete a quadrille at the close
of a ball. A few slender and graceful columns, their heads adorned with
wreaths of trefoil, began to laugh and dance here and there. Some of the
pointed arches dashed at the tall lancet windows, who, like ladies of the
Middle Ages, wore the armorial bearings of their houses emblazoned
on their golden robes. The dance of the mitred arcades with the slender
windows became like a fray at a tourney.
In another moment every stone in the church vibrated, without leaving
its place; for the organ-pipes spoke, and I heard divine music mingling
with the songs of angels, and unearthly harmony, accompanied by the
deep notes of the bells, that boomed as the giant towers rocked and
swayed on their square bases. This