all the nuns danced after his dancing legs, and their
ears hung on the clear, sweet notes he struck out of his cithern as he
walked. He took his place with his back against the great hall door,
in such attitude as men use when they play the cithern. A little
trembling ran through the nuns, and some rose from their seats and
knelt on the benches, leaning over the table, the better to see and
hear him. Their eyes sparkled like dew on meadowsweet on a fair
morning.

Certainly his fingers were bewitched or else the devil was in his
cithern, for such sweet sounds had never been heard in the hall since
the day when it was built and consecrated to the service of the
servants of God. The shrill notes fell like a tinkling rain from the
high roof in mad, fantastic trills and dying falls that brought all
one's soul to one's lips to suck them in. What he sang about, God only
knows; not one of the nuns or even the holy Abbess herself could have
told you, although you had offered her a piece of the True Cross or a
hair of the Blessed Virgin for a single word. But a divine yearning
filled all their hearts; they seemed to hear ten thousand thousand
angels singing in choruses, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia; they floated
up on impalpable clouds of azure and silver, up through the blissful
paradises of the uppermost heaven; their nostrils were filled with the
odours of exquisite spices and herbs and smoke of incense; their eyes
dazzled at splendours and lights and glories; their ears were full of
gorgeous harmonies and all created concords of sweet sounds; the very
fibres of being were loosened within them, as though their souls would
leap forth from their bodies in exquisite dissolution. The eyes of the
younger nuns grew round and large and tender, and their breath almost
died upon their velvet lips. As for the old nuns, the great, salt
tears coursed down their withered cheeks and fell like rain on their
gnarled hands. The Abbess sat on her dais with her lips apart, looking
into space, ten thousand thousand miles away. But no one saw her and
she saw no one; every one had forgotten every one else in that
delicious intoxication.

Then with a shrill cry, full of human yearnings and desire, the
minstrel came to a sudden stop--

"Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
And the small rain will down rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again."

Silence!--not one of the holy Sisters spoke, but some sighed