The Fortunes of Garin

Without blazed autumn sunshine, strong as summer sunshine in northern lands. Within the cathedral dusk ruled, rich and mysterious. The sanctuary light burned, a star. The candles were yet smoking, the incense yet clung, thick and pungent. Vanishing through the sacristy door went the last flutter of acolyte or chorister. The throng that worshipped dwindled to a few lingering shapes. The rest disappeared by the huge portal, marvellously sculptured. It had been a great throng, for Bishop Ugo had preached. Now the cathedral was almost empty, and more rich, more mysterious because of that. The saints in their niches could be seen the better, and the gold dust from the windows came in unbroken shafts to the pavement. There they splintered and light lay in fragments. One of these patches made a strange glory for the head of Boniface of Beaucaire who was doing penance, stretched out on the pavement like a cross. Lost in the shadows of nave, aisles, and chapels were other penitents, on their knees, muttering prayers. Hugues from up the river lay on his face, half in light, half in shadow, before the shrine of Saint Martial. Hugues’s penance had been heavy, for he was a captain of Free Lances and had beset and robbed a travelling monk. But in Hugues’s cavern that night the monk turned preacher and wrought so mightily that he brought Hugues—who was a simple, emotional soul—to his knees, and the next day, when they parted, sent him here for penance. He lay bare to the waist, and his back was bloody from the scourging he had received before the church doors. The church was a marvel. It had been building for long, long while, and it was not yet finished. It was begun by a grateful population, at the instigation of the then bishop, in the year 1035. All Christendom had set the year 1000 for the Second Coming and the Judgement Day, and as the time approached had waited in deep gloom and with a palsied will for those august arrivals. When the year passed, with miseries enough, but with no rolling back of the firmament like a scroll, it was concluded that what had been meant was the thousandth from the Crucifixion. 1033 was now set for the Final Event, and the neglect of each day, the torpor and terror of the mind, continued. But 1033 passed, marked by nothing more dreadful than famine and common wretchedness. Christendom woke from that particular trance, sighed with relief, and began to grow—to grow with vigour and rapidity, with luxuriance and flourishes.