nave, of which the groined roof was so like the reversed hull of a
vessel, suggesting the graceful form of the ships that made sail for
Palestine.

Only, in the present day, such memories of heroic times were vain. In
this city of Chartres, where Saint Bernard preached the second crusade,
the vessel was stranded for ever, her hull overset, her anchor out.

And looking down on the unthinking city, the Cathedral kept watch alone,
beseeching pardon for the inappetency for suffering, for the inertia of
faith that her sons displayed, uplifting her towers to the sky like two
arms, while the spires mimicked the shape of joined hands, the ten
fingers all meeting and upright one against another, in the position
which the image-makers of old gave to the dead saints and warriors they
carved upon tombs.




CHAPTER II.


Durtal had already been living at Chartres for three months.

On his return to Paris from La Trappe he had fallen into a fearful state
of spiritual anemia. His soul kept its room, rarely rose, lounged on a
couch, was torpid with the tepid langour still lulled by the sleepy
mutter of mere lip-service, and prayers reeled off as by a worn-out
machine of which the spring releases itself, so that it works all alone
with no result, and without a touch to start it.