You have been made to believe that all was darkness in Semur.  M. le Maire, it was not so.  The darkness wrapped the walls as in a winding sheet; but within, soon after you were gone, there arose a sweet and wonderful light—­a light that was neither of the sun nor of the moon; and presently, after the ringing of the bells; the silence departed as the darkness had departed.  I began to hear, first a murmur, then the sound of the going which I had felt without hearing it—­then a faint tinkle of voices—­and at the last, as my mind grew attuned to these wonders, the very words they said.  If they spoke in our language or in another, I cannot tell; but I understood.  How long it was before the sensation of their presence was aided by the happiness of hearing I know not, nor do I know how the time has passed, or how long it is, whether years or days, that I have been in Semur with those who are now there; for the light did not vary—­there was no night or day.  All I know is that suddenly, on awakening from a sleep (for the wonder was that I could sleep, sometimes sitting on the Cathedral steps, sometimes in my own house; where sometimes also I lingered and searched about for the crusts that Leocadie had left), I found the whole world full of sound.  They sang going in bands about the streets; they talked to each other as they went along every way.  From the houses, all open, where everyone could go who would, there came the soft chiming of those voices.  And at first every sound was full of gladness and hope.  The song they sang first was like this:  ’Send us, send us to our father’s house.  Many are our brethren, many and dear.  They have forgotten, forgotten, forgotten!  But when we speak, then will they hear.’  And the others answered:  ’We have come, we have come to the house of our fathers.  Sweet are the homes, the homes we were born in.  As we remember, so will they remember.  When we speak, when we speak, they will hear.’  Do not think that these were the words they sang; but it was like this.  And as they sang there was joy and expectation everywhere.  It was more beautiful than any of our music, for it was full of desire and longing, yet hope and gladness; whereas among us, where there is longing, it is always sad.  Later a great singer, I know not who he was, one going past as on a majestic soft wind, sang another song, of which I shall tell you by and by.  I do not think he was one of them.  They came out to the windows, to the doors, into all the streets and byways to hear him as he went past.

M. le Maire will, however, be good enough to remark that I did not understand all that I heard.  In the middle of a phrase, in a word half breathed, a sudden barrier would rise.  For a time I laboured after their meaning, trying hard and vainly to understand; but afterwards I perceived that only when they spoke of Semur, of you who were gone forth, and of what was being done, could I make it out.  At first this made me only more eager to hear; but when thought came, then I perceived that of all my longing nothing was satisfied.  Though I was alone with the unseen, I comprehended it not; only when it touched upon what I knew, then I understood.