FullReads

“That will not help you,” he said. “The man has no face.”

“No face!”

“He once had a face, but it has perished. His was the face of these sufferers. Look at them.”

I looked from cage to cage, and now saw that indeed all these sufferers–men and women–had but one face: the same wrung brow, the same wistful eyes, the same lips bitten in anguish. I knew the face. We all know it.

“His own Son! O devil rather than God!” I fell on my knees in the gushing water and covered my eyes.

“Stand up, listen and look!” said Harry’s voice.

“What can I see? He hides behind that curtain.”

“And the curtain?”

“It shakes continually.”

“That is with His sobs. Listen! What of the water?”

“It runs from the throne and about the floor. It washes off the blood.”

“That water is His tears. It flows hence down the hill, and washes all the shores of earth.”

Then as I stood silent, conning the eddies at my feet, for the first time Harry took my hand.

“Learn this,” he said. “There is no suffering in the world but ultimately comes to be endured by God.”

Saying this, he drew me from the spot; gently, very gently led me away; but spoke again as we were about to pass into the shadow of the arch–

“Look once back: for a moment only.”

I looked. The curtains of the imperial seat were still drawn close, but in a flash I saw the tiers beside it, and around, and away up to the sunlit crown of the amphitheatre, thronged with forms in white raiment. And all these forms leaned forward and bowed their faces on their arms and wept.

So we passed out beneath the archway. Grey Sultan stood outside, and as I mounted him the gate clashed behind. . . .

IV

I turned as it clashed. And the gate was just the lodge-gate of Sevenhays. And Grey Sultan was trampling the gravel of our own drive. The morning sun slanted over the laurels on my right, and while I wondered, the stable clock struck eight.

The rest I leave to you; nor shall try to explain. I only know that, vision or no vision, my soul from that hour has gained a calm it never knew before. The sufferings of my fellows still afflict me; but always, if I stand still and listen, in my own room, or in a crowded street, or in a waste spot among the moors, I can hear those waters moving round the world–moving on their “priest-like task “–those lustral divine tears which are Oceanus.