And up within
her, defying all rebuke, surged the hope that cannot die in
strong souls living in healthy bodies.
She had a momentary sense of shame, born of the feeling that
it is basest, most heartless selfishness to live, to respond
to the caress of keen air upon healthy skin, of glorious light
upon healthy eyes, when there are others shut out and shut
away from these joys forever. Then she said to herself, "But
no one need apologize for being alive and for hoping. I must
try to justify him for all he did for me."
A few miles of beautiful water highway between circling shores
of green, and afar off through the mist Madame Clelie's
fascinated eyes beheld a city of enchantment. It appeared and
disappeared, reappeared only to disappear again, as its veil
of azure mist was blown into thick or thin folds by the light
breeze. One moment the Frenchwoman would think there was
nothing ahead but more and ever more of the bay glittering in
the summer sunlight. The next moment she would see again that
city--or was it a mirage of a city?--towers, mighty walls,
domes rising mass above mass, summit above summit, into the
very heavens from the water's edge where there was a fringe of
green. Surely the vision must be real; yet how could tiny man
out of earth and upon earth rear in such enchantment of line
and color those enormous masses, those peak-like piercings of
the sky?
"Is that--_it?_" she asked in an awed undertone.
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