At first all went well.  Those who were in the streets, and at the doors and windows of the houses, and on the Cathedral steps, where they seemed to throng, listening to the sounding of the bells, spoke only of this that they had come to do.  Of you and you only I heard.  They said to each other, with great joy, that the women had been instructed, that they had listened, and were safe.  There was pleasure in all the city.  The singers were called forth, those who were best instructed (so I judged from what I heard), to take the place of the warders on the walls; and all, as they went along, sang that song:  ’Our brothers have forgotten; but when we speak, they will hear.’  How was it, how was it that you did not hear?  One time I was by the river porte in a boat; and this song came to me from the walls as sweet as Heaven.  Never have I heard such a song.  The music was beseeching, it moved the very heart.  ’We have come out of the unseen,’ they sang; ’for love of you; believe us, believe us!  Love brings us back to earth; believe us, believe us!’ How was it that you did not hear?  When I heard those singers sing, I wept; they beguiled the heart out of my bosom.  They sang, they shouted, the music swept about all the walls:  ‘Love brings us back to earth, believe us!’ M. le Maire, I saw you from the river gate; there was a look of perplexity upon your face; and one put his curved hand to his ear as if to listen to some thin far-off sound, when it was like a storm, like a tempest of music!

After that there was a great change in the city.  The choirs came back from the walls marching more slowly, and with a sighing through all the air.  A sigh, nay, something like a sob breathed through the streets.  ‘They cannot hear us, or they will not hear us.’  Wherever I turned, this was what I heard:  ‘They cannot hear us.’  The whole town, and all the houses that were teeming with souls, and all the street, where so many were coming and going was full of wonder and dismay. (If you will take my opinion, they know pain as well as joy, M. le Maire, Those who are in Semur.  They are not as gods, perfect and sufficing to themselves, nor are they all-knowing and all-wise, like the good God.  They hope like us, and desire, and are mistaken; but do no wrong.  This is my opinion.  I am no more than other men, that you should accept it without support; but I have lived among them, and this is what I think.) They were taken by surprise; they did not understand it any more than we understand when we have put forth all our strength and fail.  They were confounded, if I could judge rightly.  Then there arose cries from one to another:  ’Do you forget what was said to us?’ and, ‘We were warned, we were warned.’  There went a sighing over all the city:  ’They cannot hear us, our voices are not as their voices; they cannot see us.  We have taken their homes from them, and they know not the reason.’  My heart was wrung for their disappointment.  I longed to tell them that neither had I heard at once; but it was only after a time that I ventured upon this.  And whether I spoke, and was heard; or if it was read in my heart, I cannot tell.  There was a pause made round me as if of wondering and listening, and then, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a face suddenly turned and looked into my face.