DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61635#0084
[ So ]
from under a borrowed umbrella, we watched the
open-air market. The embankment was carpeted
with greens and full of noisy peasants. The prevail-
ing tint, like that of the sky above, was a dull bluish
grey, relieved here and there by a dash of white.
Fastened to rings in the stone wall of the embank-
ment, some thirty or forty of the boats with pointed
prows lay on the water. Two, piled high with
cabbages and carrots, the brightest bit of colour in
the picture, were being poled towards the market-
place. Others, laden with empty baskets, satisfied-
looking women in the prow, a man at the stern,
were on their homeward way. And above the
river and the busy people and the background of
houses the great cathedral loomed up, a “ mass of
wall, not blank, but strangely wrought by the hands
of foolish men of long ago.”
We found a priest .saying Mass in the chapel
behind the choir, the eastern light shining on him
at the altar. His congregation consisted of four
poor women and one great lady in silk attire kneel-
ing in the place of honour. In the nave and aisles
were a handful of tourists and two sentimental
travellers—z’.c., ourselves, who scorned to be classed
as tourists—uttering platitudes under their breath
about the unspeakable feeling of space and height,
as if the cathedral existed but to excite their wonder.
We
from under a borrowed umbrella, we watched the
open-air market. The embankment was carpeted
with greens and full of noisy peasants. The prevail-
ing tint, like that of the sky above, was a dull bluish
grey, relieved here and there by a dash of white.
Fastened to rings in the stone wall of the embank-
ment, some thirty or forty of the boats with pointed
prows lay on the water. Two, piled high with
cabbages and carrots, the brightest bit of colour in
the picture, were being poled towards the market-
place. Others, laden with empty baskets, satisfied-
looking women in the prow, a man at the stern,
were on their homeward way. And above the
river and the busy people and the background of
houses the great cathedral loomed up, a “ mass of
wall, not blank, but strangely wrought by the hands
of foolish men of long ago.”
We found a priest .saying Mass in the chapel
behind the choir, the eastern light shining on him
at the altar. His congregation consisted of four
poor women and one great lady in silk attire kneel-
ing in the place of honour. In the nave and aisles
were a handful of tourists and two sentimental
travellers—z’.c., ourselves, who scorned to be classed
as tourists—uttering platitudes under their breath
about the unspeakable feeling of space and height,
as if the cathedral existed but to excite their wonder.
We