en all relapsed into gloom, and the little candles were borne aloft and
went their way through the heavy darkness of the galleries. The visit
lasted another hour, for the Trappist did not spare a detail, fond as he
was of certain nooks and corners, and as zealous as if he desired to work
the redemption of his visitors.

While Pierre followed the others, a complete evolution took place within
him. As he looked about him, and formed a more and more complete idea of
his surroundings, his first stupefaction at finding the reality so
different from the embellished accounts of story-tellers and poets, his
disillusion at being plunged into such rudely excavated mole-burrows,
gave way to fraternal emotion. It was not that he thought of the fifteen
hundred martyrs whose sacred bones had rested there. But how humble,
resigned, yet full of hope had been those who had chosen such a place of
sepulchre! Those low, darksome galleries were but temporary
sleeping-places for the Christians. If they did not burn the bodies of
their dead, as the Pagans did, it was because, like the Jews, they
believed in the resurrection of the body; and it was that lovely idea of
sleep, of tranquil rest after a just life, whilst awaiting the celestial
reward, which imparted such intense peacefulness, such infinite charm, to
the black, subterranean city. Everything there spoke of calm and silent
night; everything there slumbered in rapturous quiescence, patient until
the far-off awakening. What could be more touching than those terra-cotta
tiles, those marble slabs, which bore not even a name--nothing but the
words _In Pace_--at peace. Ah! to be at peace--life's work at last
accomplished; to sleep in peace, to hope in peace for the advent of
heaven! And the peacefulness seemed the more delightful as it was enjoyed
in such deep humility. Doubtless the diggers worked chance-wise and
clumsily; the craftsmen no longer knew how to engrave a name or carve a
palm or a dove. Art had vanished; but all the feebleness and ignorance
were instinct with the youth of a new humanity. Poor and lowly and meek
ones swarmed there, reposing beneath the soil, whilst up above the sun
continued its everlasting task. You found there charity and fraternity
and death; husband and wife often lying together with their offspring at
their feet; the great mass of the unknown submerging the personage, the
bishop, or the martyr; the most touching equality--that springing from
modesty--preva