I raised my eyes and, behind the mail-clad shape, I saw the dawn
breaking, blood-red, and with great clouds like pillars of smoke
rolling up on either side of the place where the sun was about to rise.
But as yet the sun was not visible. And as I looked, she cried aloud,
and her voice rang through the air like the clash of steel:--

"Listen!"

And she struck her spear on the marble pavement. At the same moment
there came from afar off, a confused sound of battle. Cries, and
human voices in conflict, and the stir as of a vast multitude, the
distant clang of arms and a noise of the galloping of many horses
rushing furiously over the ground. And then, sudden silence.

Again she smote the pavement, and again the sounds arose, nearer
now, and more tumultuous. Once more they ceased, and a third time
she struck the marble with her spear. Then the noises arose all
about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of
the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns
beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud
of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were,
a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle
were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the
sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and
even after waking I still seemed to catch the commotion of them
in the air. *

--Paris, February 15, 1883.