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Updated: June 28, 2025
Before he approached it a hind and her calf had been cropping the grass between the cracks of the altar-steps; all else was very still, yet had a feeling of habitancy and familiar use. His instinct when he saw an altar being to say his prayers, he knelt down then and there, facing the image, yet a little remote from it.
So they went the three of them together. It was dark and still within the church; in front of the altar-steps were set a faldstool and a chair, where the Duke might pray, or sit if he were weary; two tall wax lights stood beside, and lit up the crimson cloth and the gold fringes, so that it seemed like a rare flower blossoming in the dark.
To which she answered, that she had sunk down almost dead on the altar-steps; and, as he seemed to doubt her, she repeated part of the sermon, and spoke of the curse pronounced upon the girl, and told how she had remained behind in the church, to weep and pray alone. Upon which he exclaimed joyfully "Now, I thank God that my blessed spouse counselled me to take thee home with us. Ah!
One solemn religious procession, one service, one sermon from the altar-steps or the pulpit, in which the preacher does not believe, produces incomparably more evil than thousands of swindling tricks, adulteration of food, and so on. We talk of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But the hypocrisy of our society far surpasses the comparatively innocent hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
The group of women led by Joseph, the shepherd carrying the lamb upon his shoulder, the girl with a basket of white doves, the child with an apple on the altar-steps, the lovely youth in the foreground heedless of the scene; all these are idyllic incidents treated with the purest, the serenest, the most spontaneous, the truest, most instinctive sense of beauty.
A black shadow on the floor would be the long body, lying face downwards on the altar-steps, with outspread, crucified arms. He heard her stifled crying upon the Name, and the gurgling outrush of mingled air and blood that followed each deep sob for breath....
I stood leaning against a marble pillar near the altar-steps, during the service, when I saw the young girl kneeling on the pavement in act of prayer. Her black lace veil had fallen a little back from her head; and there was something in her modest attitude and graceful figure that made her conspicuous among all her kneeling companions, with their gay kerchiefs and bright gowns.
Kundry, with her eyes turned toward all these luminous things, sinks softly upon the altar-steps, the life-giving Grail having given her life too, in the form of desired death. With the interwoven Grail and Faith and Spear music letting down as if a curtain of silver and azure and gold, the poem closes.
That dear Saint may the Peace of God and the Bliss of His Vision be upon her for ever! lay dead on the altar-steps where the wicked, murdering hand had shot her down.... And the child lay across her, just where she had dropped in trying to lift her. And the strength of me and the Sister, and the strength of them that came after, wasn't equal to unloose those slender little hands you're watching."
With a moan of pain he sank down close beside the altar-steps. And there, through the midnight hours, he lay alone and wrestled with himself. It was no use. Everything fell from him in that hour except that faith and that love which had been the controlling powers of his life.
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