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.

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?