One day after their luncheon-hour, as they were about to resume work, the teacher of the class entered. He looked shocked; his look shocked them; instant sympathy ran through them. He spoke2 with difficulty:
"She has come back. She is down-stairs. Something had befallen her in deed. She told me as briefly3 as possible and I tell you all I know. Her son, a little fellow who had just been chosen for the cathedral choir4 school was run over in the street. A mention of it—the usual story—was in the papers, but who of us reads such things in the papers? They bore us; they are not even news. He was taken to St. Luke's, and she has been at St. Luke's, and the end came at St. Luke's, and all the time we have been here a few yards distant and have known nothing of it. Such is New York! It was to help pay for his education in music that she first came to us, she said. And it was the news that he had been chosen for the choir school that accounts for the new happiness which we saw brighten her day by day. Now she comes again for the same small wage, but with other need, no doubt: the expenses of it all, a rose-bush for his breast. She told me this calmly as though it caused her no grief. It was not my privilege, it is not our privilege, to share her unutterable bereavement5.
"She has asked to go on with the sittings. I have told her to come to-morrow. But she does not realize all that this involves with the portrait. You will have to bring new canvases, it will have to be a new work. She is in mourning. Her hands will have to be left out, she has hurt them; they are bandaged. The new portrait will be of the head and face only. But the chief reason is the change of expression. The light which was in her face and which you have partly caught upon your canvases, has died out; it was brutally6 put out. The old look is gone. It is gone, and will never come back—the tender, brooding, reverent7 happiness and peace of motherhood with the child at her knee—that great earthly beacon-light in women of ages past. It was brutally put out but it did not leave blankness behind it. There has come in its place another light, another ancient beacon-light on the faces of women of old—the look of faith in immortal8 things. She is not now the mother with the tenderness of this earth but the mother with the expectation of eternity9. Her eyes have followed him who has left her arms and gone into a distance. Ever she follows him into that distance. Your portrait, if you can paint it, will be the mother with the look of immortal things in her face."
When she entered the room next morning, at the sight of her in mourning and so changed in every way, with one impulse they all rose to her. She took no notice,—perhaps it would have been unendurable to notice,—but she stepped forward as usual, and climbed to the platform without faltering10, and he posed her for the head and shoulders. Then, to study the effect from different angles, he went behind the easels, passing from one to another. As he returned, with the thought of giving her pleasure, he brought along with him one of the sketches11 of herself and held it out before her.
"Do you recognize it?" he asked.
She refused to look at first. Then arousing herself from her indifference12 she glanced at it. But when she beheld13 there what she had never seen—how great had been her love of him; when she beheld there the light now gone out and realized that it meant the end of happy days with him, she shut her eyes quickly and jerked her head to one side with a motion for him to take the picture away. But she had been brought too close to her sorrow and suddenly she bent14 over her hands like a snapped reed and the storm of her grief came upon her.
They started up to get to her. They fought one another to get to her. They crowded around the platform, and tried to hide her from one another's eyes, and knelt down, and wound their arms about her, and sobbed15 with her; and then they lifted her and guided her behind the screens.
"Now, if you will allow them," he said, when she came out with them, one of them having lent her a veil, "some of these young friends will go home with you. And whenever you wish, whenever you feel like it, come back to us. We shall be ready. We shall be waiting. We shall all be glad."
On the heights the cathedral rises—slowly, as the great houses of man's Christian16 faith have always risen.
Years have drifted by as silently as the winds since the first rock was riven where its foundations were to be laid, and still all day on the clean air sounds the lonely clink of drill and chisel17 as the blasting and the shaping of the stone goes on. The snows of winters have drifted deep above its rough beginnings; the suns of many a spring have melted the snows away. Well nigh a generation of human lives has already measured its brief span about the cornerstones. Far-brought, many-tongued toilers, toiling19 on the rising walls, have dropped their work and stretched themselves in their last sleep; others have climbed to their places; the work goes on. Upon the shoulders of the images of the Apostles, which stand about the chancel, generations of pigeons—the doves of the temple whose nests are in the niches20—upon the shoulders of the Apostles generations of pigeons born in the niches have descended21 out of the azure22 as with the benediction23 of shimmering24 wings. Generations of the wind-borne seeds of wild flowers have lodged25 in low crevices26 and have sprouted27 and blossomed, and as seeds again have been blown further on—harbingers of vines and mosses28 already on their venerable way.
A mighty29 shape begins to answer back to the cathedrals of other lands and ages, bespeaking30 for itself admittance into the league of the world's august sanctuaries31. It begins to send its annunciation onward32 into ages yet to be, so remote, so strange, that we know not in what sense the men of it will even be our human brothers save as they are children of the same Father.
Between this past and this future, the one of which cannot answer because it is too late and the other of which can not answer because it is too soon—between this past and this future the cathedral stands in a present that answers back to it more and more. For a world of living-men and women see kindled33 there the same ancient flame that has been the light of all earlier stations on that solitary34 road of faith which runs for a little space between the two eternities—a road strewn with the dust of countless35 wayfarers36 bearing each a different cross of burden but with eyes turned toward the same Cross of hope.
As on some mountain-top a tall pine-tree casts its lengthened37 shadow upon the valleys far below, round and round with the circuit of the sun, so the cathedral flings hither and thither38 across the whole land its spiritual shaft39 of light. A vast, unnumbered throng40 begin to hear of it, begin to look toward it, begin to grow familiar with its emerging form. In imagination they see its chapels41 bathed in the glories of the morning sun; they remember its unfinished dome42 gilded43 at the hush44 of sunsets. Between the roar of the eastern and of the western ocean its organ speaks of a Divine peace above mortal storm. Pilgrims from afar, known only to themselves as pilgrims, being pilgrim-hearted but not pilgrim-clad, reach at its gates the borders of their Gethsemane. Bowed as penitents45, they hail its lily of forgiveness and the resurrection.
Slowly the cathedral rises, in what unknown years to stand finished! Crowning a city of new people, let it be hoped, of better laws. Finished and standing46 on its rock for the order of the streets, for order in the land and order throughout the world, for order in the secret places of the soul. Majestical rebuker47 of the waste of lives, rebuker of a country which invites all lives into it and wastes lives most ruthlessly—lives which it stands there to shelter and to foster and to save.
So it speaks to the distant through space and time; but it speaks also to the near.
Although not half risen out of the earth, encumbering48 it rough and shapeless, already it draws into its service many who dwell around. These seek to cast their weaknesses on its strength, to join their brief day to its innumerable years, to fall into the spiritual splendor49 of it as out in space small darkened wanderers drop into the orbit of a sun. Anguished50 memories begin to bequeath their jewels to its shrine51; dimmed eyes will their tears to its eyes, its windows. Old age with one foot in the grave drags the other resignedly about its crypt. In its choir sound the voices of children herded52 in from the green hillside of life's April.
Rachel Truesdale! Her life became one of these near-by lives which it blesses, a darkened wanderer caught into the splendor of a spiritual sun. It gathered her into its service; it found useful work for her to do; and in this new life of hers it drew out of her nature the last thing that is ever born of the mother—faith that she is separated a little while from her children only because they have received the gift of eternal youth.
Many a proud happy thought became hers as time went on. She had had her share in its glory, for it had needed him whom she had brought into the world. It had called upon him to help give song to its message and to build that ever-falling rainbow of music over which human Hope walks into the eternal.
Always as the line of white-clad choristers passed down the aisle53, among them was one who brushed tenderly against her as he walked by, whom no one else saw. Rising above the actual voices and heard by her alone, up to the dome soared a voice dearer, more thrilling, than the rest.
Often she was at her window, watching the workmen at their toil18 as they brought out more and more the great shape on the heights. Often she stood looking across at the park hillside opposite. Whenever spring came back and the slope lived again with young leaves and white blossoms, always she thought of him. Always she saw him playing in an eternal April. When autumn returned and leaves withered54 and dropped, she thought of herself.
Sometimes standing beside his piano.
Having always in her face the look of immortal things.
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1
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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3
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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4
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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8
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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10
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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11
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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12
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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13
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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14
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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15
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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20
niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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23
benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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24
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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25
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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26
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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27
sprouted
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| v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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28
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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29
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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30
bespeaking
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| v.预定( bespeak的现在分词 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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31
sanctuaries
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| n.避难所( sanctuary的名词复数 )；庇护；圣所；庇护所 | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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33
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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34
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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35
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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36
wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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37
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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39
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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40
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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41
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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42
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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43
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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44
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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45
penitents
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| n.后悔者( penitent的名词复数 )；忏悔者 | |
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46
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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47
rebuker
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48
encumbering
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的现在分词 ) | |
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49
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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50
anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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51
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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52
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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53
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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54
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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