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The Cathedral by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
page 25 of 458 (05%)
chalice and a paten, a censer and a loaf; while to the right of the
other sovereign who held the sceptre, a still more harassing shape came
forth against the blue background of the sword--a sort of oriental
brigand, escaped perhaps from the prison cells of Persepolis or Susa, a
bandit as it seemed, wearing a little scarlet cap edged with yellow, in
shape like an inverted jam-pot, and a tan-coloured gown with white
stripes on the skirt; and this clumsy and ferocious personage bore a
green palm and a book.

Durtal turned away to sound the depths of darkness, and before him, at a
giddy height on the horizon, more sword-blades gleamed. The scrawls
which might have been mistaken in the darkness for patterns embossed or
incised on the surface of the steel, developed into figures draped in
long, straight, pleated robes; and at the highest point of the firmament
there hovered amid a sparkle of rubies and sapphires a woman crowned,
pale of face, dressed like the Moorish mother of the northern side in
Carmelite-brown and green; and she too held an infant, a child, like
herself, of the white race, clasping a globe in one hand, and extending
the other in benediction.

Last of all, the still dark side, the late side, to Durtal's right hand
and further south, till now wrapped in the half-dispelled morning haze,
was lighted up; the shield opposite to that on the north caught the
blaze, and below it, against the polished metal of the broad blade
facing that which presented the negress queen, appeared a woman of
somewhat olive hue, in raiment like the others, of myrtle-green and
brown, holding a sceptre, and with her, too, there was a child. And
round her again emerged images of men piled up one above the other,
shouldering each other in the narrow field they filled.

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