A young musician, his dark eyes fixed intently on far-off things, said
quietly:
"I should like to set this down in terms of music":
Along a road leading to a large town walks a little boy. He walks and
hastens not.
The town lies prostrate; the heavy mass of its buildings presses
against the earth. And it groans, this town, and sends forth a
murmurous sound. From afar it looks as if it had just burned out,
for over it the blood-red flame of the sunset still lingers, and the
crosses of its churches, its spires and vanes, seem red-hot.
The edges of the black clouds are also on fire, angular roofs of tall
buildings stand out ominously against the red patches, window-panes
like deep wounds glisten here and there. The stricken town, spent with
woe, the scene of an incessant striving after happiness--is bleeding
to death, and the warm blood sends up a reek of yellowish, suffocating
smoke.
The boy walks on. The road, like a broad ribbon, cleaves a way amid
fields invaded by the gathering twilight; straight it goes, piercing
the side of the town like a rapier thrust by a powerful, unseen hand.
The trees by the roadside resemble unlit torches; their large black
heads are uplifted above the silent earth in motionless expectancy.
The sky is covered with clouds and no stars are to be seen; there are
no shadows; the late evening is sad and still, and save for the slow,
light steps of the boy no sound breaks the silence of the tired fields
as they fall asleep in the dusk.
The boy walks on. And, noiselessly, the night follows him and envelops
in its black mantle the distances from which he has emerged.
As the dusk grows deeper it hides in its embrace the red and white
houses which sink submissively into the earth. It hides the gardens
with their trees, and leaves them lonely, like orphans, on the
hillsides. It hides the chimney-stacks.
Everything around becomes black, vanishes, blotted out by the darkness
of the night; it is as if the little figure advancing slowly, stick in
hand, along the road inspired some strange kind of fear.
He goes on, without speaking, without hastening, his eyes steadily
fixed upon the town; he is alone, ridiculously small and insignificant,
yet it seems as if he bore something indispensable to and long awaited
by all in the town, where blue, yellow and red lights are being
speedily lit to greet him.
The sun sinks completely. The crosses, the vanes and the spires melt
and vanish, the town seems to subside, grow smaller, and to press ever
more closely against the dumb earth.
Above the town, an opal cloud, weirdly coloured, flares and gradually
grows larger; a phosphorescent, yellowish mist settles unevenly on
the grey network of closely huddled houses. The town itself no longer
seems to be consumed by fire and reeking in blood--the broken lines
of the roofs and walls have the appearance now of something magical,
fantastic, but yet of something incomplete, not properly finished, as
if he who planned this great town for men had suddenly grown tired and
fallen asleep, or had lost faith, and, casting everything aside in his
disappointment, had gone away, or died.
But the town lives and is possessed by an anxious longing to see itself
beautiful and upraised proudly before the sun. It murmurs in a fever of
many-sided desire for happiness, it is excited by a passionate will to
live. Slow waves of muffled sound issue into the dark silence of the
surrounding fields, and the black bowl of the sky is gradually filled
with a dull, languishing light.
The boy stops, with uplifted brows, and shakes his head; then he looks
boldly ahead and, staggering, walks quickly on.
The night, following him, says in the soft, kind voice of a mother:
"It is time, my son, hasten! They are waiting."
"Of course it is impossible to write it down!" said the young musician
with a thoughtful smile.
Then, after a moment's silence, he folded his hands, and added,
wistfully, fondly, in a low voice:
"Purest Virgin Mary! what awaits him?"