Full of a singular light-heartedness, he hummed a soft tune to himself as he moved about his room,--his desire to view the interior of the Cathedral had not abated with sleep, but had rather augmented,--and he resolved to visit it now, while he had the chance of beholding it in all the impressive splendor of uncrowded tranquillity. For he knew that by the time he was dressed, the first Mass would be over,--the priests and people would be gone,--and he would be alone to enjoy the magnificence of the place in full poet-luxury,--the luxury of silence and solitude.
He attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous eagerness,--he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the Dom as he had been to arrive at the Field of Ardath! The same feverish impatience was upon him--impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not account for,--his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories, and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth, came back to him without his wish or will,-- songs that he instinctively felt belonged to his Past, when as "Sah-luma" he had won golden opinions in Al-Kyris. And though they were but echoes, they seemed this morning to touch him with half- pleasing, half-tender suggestiveness,--two lines especially from the Idyl of Roses he had penned so long,--ah! so very long ago,-- came floating through his brain like a message sent from some other world,-"By the pureness of love shall our glory in loving increase, And the roses of passion for us are the lilies of peace."
The "lilies of peace" and the flowers of Ardath,--the "roses of passion" and the love of Edris, these were all mingled almost unconsciously in his thoughts, as with an inexplicable, happy sense of tremulous expectation,--expectation of he knew not what- he went, walking as one in haste, across the broad Platz and ascended the steps of the Cathedral. But the side-entrance was fast shut, as on the previous night,--he therefore made his rapid way round to the great western door. That stood open,--the bell had long ago ceased,--Mass was over,--and all was profoundly still.
Out of the warm sunlit air he stepped into the vast, cool, clear- obscure, white glory of the stately shrine,--with bared head and noiseless, reverent feet, he advanced a little way up the nave, and then stood motionless, every artistic perception in him satisfied, soothed, and entranced anew, as in his student-days, by the tranquil grandeur of the scene. What majestic silence! What hallowed peace! How jewel-like the radiance of the sun pouring through the rich stained glass on those superb carved pillars, that, like petrified stems of forest-trees, bear lightly up the lofty, vaulted roof to that vast height suggestive of a white sky rather than stone!