There was always a living murmur in it: half-lost sounds,
like the faint echo of a Low Mass; the rustling of the kneeling
penitents, a slight, scarcely perceptible shivering, nothing but the
devout ardour of a prayer said without words and with closed lips.
Now, as the days grew longer, Angelique passed more and more time in the
morning and evening with her elbows on the balustrade of the balcony,
side by side with her great friend, the Cathedral. She loved it the best
at night, when she saw the enormous mass detach itself like a huge block
on the starry skies. The form of the building was lost. It was with
difficulty that she could even distinguish the flying buttresses, which
were thrown like bridges into the empty space. It was, nevertheless,
awake in the darkness, filled with a dream of seven centuries, made
grand by the multitudes who had hoped or despaired before its altars.
It was a continual watch, coming from the infinite of the past, going to
the eternity of the future; the mysterious and terrifying wakefulness
of a house where God Himself never sleeps. And in the dark, motionless,
living mass, her looks were sure to seek the window of a chapel of the
choir, on the level of the bushes of the Clos-Marie, the only one which
was lighted up, and which seemed like an eye which was kept open all
the night.
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