Was it, then, no longer the field
of other days, that everything in it so astonished her and affected her
senses in so unusual a way? Or, rather, was not she herself so changed
that, for the first time, she appreciated the beauty of the coming into
life of trees and plants?
But the Cathedral at her right, the enormous mass which obstructed the
sky, surprised her yet more. Each morning she seemed to see it for the
first time; she made constant discoveries in it, and was delighted to
think that these old stones lived and had lived like herself. She did
not reason at all on the subject, she had very little knowledge, but
she gave herself up to the mystic flight of the giant, whose coming into
existence had demanded three centuries of time, and where were placed
one above the other the faith and the belief of generations. At the
foundation, it was kneeling as if crushed by prayer, with the Romanesque
chapels of the nave, and with the round arched windows, plain,
unornamented, except by slender columns under the archivolts. Then it
seemed to rise, lifting its face and hands towards heaven, with the
pointed windows of its nave, built eighty years later; high, delicate
windows, divided by mullions on which were broken bows and roses.
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