When Jacques awoke he was greatly surprised. The ravine, the snow,
the forest, the mountain, the gray sky, the freezing wind,--all had
disappeared. He looked for his fagot, but could find it nowhere. He
had never seen or even heard of this new country; and he was unable
to define its substance, to circumscribe its immensity, or appreciate
its splendors. The air was balmy, saturated with exquisite perfumes,
and it exhaled soft harmonies that made his heart quiver with delight.
He rose. The ground beneath his feet was elastic, and seemed to rise
to meet his step, so that walking became restful. A luminous halo
hovered about him. Instead of the old torn cloak, he wore a mantle
strewn with stars, and it was seamless, like the one for which dice
were cast on the heights of Calvary. His hands--his poor little
hands, tumefied with chilblains, and which the cold had chapped and
creviced,--were now white and soft like the tips of a swan's wings.
Jacques was amazed, but no feeling of fear agitated him. He was calm
and felt strangely confident. A great burden seemed to have been
lifted from his shoulders; he was as light as the air, and aglow with
beatitude.
"Where am I?" he asked; and a voice more harmonious than the
whispering of the breeze answered,--
"In my Father's House, which is the home of the Just."
Then through a veil of azure and light a great granite crucifix arose
before him. It was the crucifix of the Trèves. Grand-Pierre's cloak,
with the rent across it, floated from the shoulders of the Christ.
The coarse wool had grown as diaphanous as a cloud, and through it
the light radiated as from a sun. The thorns on his brow glittered
like carbuncles, and a superhuman beauty lighted his countenance.
From fields of space which the sight could now explore came aerial
chants. Jacques fell upon his knees and prostrated himself.