Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and
trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a
gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral
square. Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep
about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom,
again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil
from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!
The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about from the
firelight. The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of
rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the 'etagere'. Her hands are
restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will
it never cease to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration
shatters a glass on the 'etagere'. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A door creaks.
The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken glass." "Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my
father brought it--" Boom! The room shakes, the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!
It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he is
shut within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his table, his
ink, his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls are pierced
with beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain tosses
itself up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain,
bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and
higher. Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The
fountain rears up in long broken spears of dishevelled water and
flattens into the earth. Boom! And there is only the room, the table,
the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom!--Boom!--Boom! He
stuffs his fingers into his ears. He sees corpses, and cries out in
fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom!
Boom!
A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made
the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my
Darling, I am here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the
room shook." Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom!
"Where is Father? I am so afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks.
The house trembles and creaks. Boom!
Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing
across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that is
his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window, he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and
the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the
lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms
the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It leaps into the
night and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning stain on
the white, wet night.
Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to
scorch. Boom! The bohemian glass on the 'etagere' is no longer there.
Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains. The old
lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk and counts.
Boom!--Boom!--Boom!
The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of
silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads.
The city burns. Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run
the flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing its
gold on the sky, the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and
lisps and chuckles along the floors.
The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame creep along the
ceiling beams.
The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning
Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter
and crowd into the cellars. They shout and call, and over all, slowly
and without force, the rain drops into the city. Boom! And the steeple
crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes
along the gutters. The fire roars and mutters. Boom!