It was gone like a breath in this vast, vivid atmosphere of man.

He had said mass, had he not?
this morning--in white vestments .-- Yes; he had believed it all then--desperately, but truly; and now....
To look into the future was as useless as to look into the past.

There was no future, and no past: it was all one eternal instant, present and final....
Then he let go of effort, and again began to see with his bodily eyes.
* * * * * The dawn was coming up the sky now, a steady soft brightening that appeared in spite of its sovereignty to be as nothing compared with the brilliant light of the streets.

"We need no sun," he whispered, smiling piteously; "no sun or light of a candle.

We have our light on earth--the light that lighteneth every man...." The Campanile seemed further away than ever now, in that ghostly glimmer of dawn--more and more helpless every moment, compared with the beautiful vivid shining of the streets.
Then he listened to the sounds, and it seemed to him as if somewhere, far down eastwards, there was a silence beginning.