Then
the banners began to oscillate, and soon a regular motion set in.
"Oh! so they won't pass this way!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint in a tone of
disappointment.
Pierre, who had informed himself on the matter, thereupon explained that
the procession would first of all ascend the serpentine road--constructed
at great cost up the hillside--and that it would afterwards pass behind
the Basilica, descend by the inclined way on the right hand, and then
spread out through the gardens.
"Look!" said he; "you can see the foremost tapers ascending amidst the
greenery."
Then came an enchanting spectacle. Little flickering lights detached
themselves from the great bed of fire, and began gently rising, without
it being possible for one to tell at that distance what connected them
with the earth. They moved upward, looking in the darkness like golden
particles of the sun. And soon they formed an oblique streak, a streak
which suddenly twisted, then extended again until it curved once more. At
last the whole hillside was streaked by a flaming zigzag, resembling
those lightning flashes which you see falling from black skies in cheap
engravings. But, unlike the lightning, the luminous trail did not fade
away; the little lights still went onward in the same slow, gentle,
gliding manner. Only for a moment, at rare intervals, was there a sudden
eclipse; the procession, no doubt, was then passing behind some clump of
trees. But, farther on, the tapers beamed forth afresh, rising heavenward
by an intricate path, which incessantly diverged and then started upward
again.
Pages:
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385