“And the august simplicity of the exterior is repeated in the interior of the church.

“Here, however, the Romanesque has already lost its crushed, crypt-like character, its obscure aspect as of a Persian cellar.  The strong structural lines are the same; the capitals still display the inflorescence of Mussulman involutions, the fabulous entanglements of Assyrian patterns, reminiscences of Asiatic art transplanted to our soil; but we already see the union of dissimilar bays; columns struggle upwards, pillars are taller, the wide arches are less rigid, and have a lighter and longer trajectory; and the plain walls, enormous but already light, are pierced at prodigious heights with holes admitting the day.

“At Paray the round arch is to be seen in harmony with the pointed arch which appears in the higher summits of the structure, announcing the advent of a less plaintive phase of the soul, a tenderer and less harsh idea of Christ, who is preparing, and already revealing, the Mother’s indulgent smile.

“But then,” said Durtal, suddenly, to himself, “if my theories are correct, the architecture which could, by itself alone, symbolize Catholicism as a whole, and represent the complete Bible in both Testaments, must be either Romanesque with the pointed arch, or a transition style, half Romanesque and half Gothic.

“The deuce!” thought he, thus led to an unforeseen conclusion.  “To be sure, it is not necessary perhaps that the church itself should offer so complete a parallel, or that the Old and New Testaments should be bound up in one volume; here, indeed, at Chartres the work, though integral, is in two separate volumes, since the crypt on which the Gothic church rests is Romanesque.  Nay, it is thus even more symbolical, and it emphasizes the idea of the windows in which the prophets bear on their shoulders the four Evangelists; once more the Old Testament appears as the base, the foundation of the New.

“What a fulcrum for dreams is this Romanesque!” Durtal went on.  “Is it not also the smoke-stained shrine, the gloomy retreat, constructed for black Virgins?  This seems all the less doubtful because all the Mauresque Virgins are thick-set and heavy; they are not sylphs, like the fair Virgins of Gothic art.  The Byzantine School conceived of Mary as swarthy, ‘of the hue of polished brown ebony,’ as the old historians say; only, in opposition to the text in Canticles, it painted or carved Her as black, indeed, but not comely.  Thus figured, She is truly a gloomy Virgin, eternally sorrowing, in harmony with the Romanesque catacombs.  Her presence naturally beseems the crypt of Chartres; but in the Cathedral itself, on the pillar where She stands to this day, does She not appear strange?  For She is not in Her true home under the soaring white vault.”

“Well, our friend, you are dreaming!”

Durtal started like a man roused from sleep.

“Ah!  It is you, Madame Bavoil?”