forced together and the rotulae touched,
but the lower legs were held wide apart, though the feet were placed one
on top of the other. These, beginning to putrefy, were turning green
beneath a river of blood. Spongy and blistered, they were horrible, the
flesh tumefied, swollen over the head of the spike, and the gripping
toes, with the horny blue nails, contradicted the imploring gesture of
the hands, turning that benediction into a curse; and as the hands
pointed heavenward, so the feet seemed to cling to earth, to that ochre
ground, ferruginous like the purple soil of Thuringia.

Above this eruptive cadaver, the head, tumultuous, enormous, encircled
by a disordered crown of thorns, hung down lifeless. One lacklustre eye
half opened as a shudder of terror or of sorrow traversed the expiring
figure. The face was furrowed, the brow seamed, the cheeks blanched; all
the drooping features wept, while the mouth, unnerved, its under jaw
racked by tetanic contractions, laughed atrociously.

The torture had been terrific, and the agony had frightened the mocking
executioners into flight.

Against a dark blue night-sky the cross seemed to bow down, almost to
touch the ground with its tip, while two figures, one on each side, kept
watch over the Christ. One was the Virgin, wearing a hood the colour of
mucous blood over a robe of wan blue. Her face was pale and swollen with
weeping, and she stood rigid, as one who buries his fingernails deep
into his palms and sobs. The other figure was that of Saint John, like a
gipsy or sunburnt Swabian peasant, very tall, his beard matted and
tangled, his robe of a scarlet stuff cut in wide strips like slabs of
bark. His mantle was a chamois yellow; the lining, caught up at the
sleeves, showed a feverish yellow as of unripe lemons. Spent with
weeping, but possessed of more endurance than Mary, who was yet erect
but broken and exhausted, he had joined his hands and in an access of
outraged loyalty had drawn himself up before the corpse, which he
contemplated with his red and smoky eyes while he choked back the cry
which threatened to rend his quivering throat.

Ah, this coarse, tear-compelling Calvary was at the opposite pole from
those debonair Golgothas adopted by the Church ever since the
Renaissance. This lockjaw Christ was not the Christ of the rich, the
Adonis of Galilee, the exquisite dandy, the handsome youth with the
curly brown tresses, divided beard, and insipid doll-like features