We sat side by side in silence.
The mist made everything unreal—ourselves included.
I looked at the girl—the light from the street lamps glinted in her wide-open eyes.
"Come," said I, "come close to me—else the mist will bear you away."
She turned her face toward me.
She was smiling, her lips slightly open; her teeth gleamed, her big eyes were looking in my direction; and yet I felt she was not seeing me at all—as if she were smiling past, beyond me into the grey, silver flowing, as if she had been stirred in some ghostly way by the wind moving in the treetops, by the moist trickle down the trunks; as if she were listening to some dark, inaudible summons behind the trees, behind the world; as if she must rise up at once and go away, through the mist, aimless and sure, and follow it, the dark mysterious call of the earth and of life.
Never will I forget that face—never forget how it then inclined toward me, how it won expression, how it filled silently with tenderness and compassion, with a shining quietness, as if it flowered—never will I forget how her lips came toward mine, how her eyes approached mine, how they stood close in front of me and looked at me, questioning, solemn, big and shining—and then how they slowly closed as if surrendering themselves. . . .
The mist drifted and drifted.
The crosses of the gravestones stood pale above the billows, I wrapped my coat about us.
The city had completely foundered.
Time was dead.
We sat so a long time.
Gradually the wind began to blow stronger and shadows loomed through the grey air in front of us.
I heard steps crunching and a soft murmuring between.
Then the stifled strumming of guitars.
I raised my head.
The shadows came nearer, turned into dark figures and formed a circle.
Quiet.
And suddenly loud singing:
"Jesus bids you come—"
I sat up with a start and listened.
What was it? where were we? On the moon?
It was a choir, by Jove—a female, two-part choir!
"Sinner, sinner, arise!" it echoed over the graveyard to the time of a military march.
I stared at Pat.
"What do you make of it?" said I.
'"Come to the mercy seat—" it continued at a brisk pace.
At once I realized. "Lieber Gott!
The Salvation Army!"
"Let not sin unbridled run—" exhorted the shadows anew in a crescendo.
Lights were dancing in Pat's brown eyes.
Her lips twitched and her shoulders heaved.
Irresistibly it went on fortissimo:—
Burning hell and fiery pain
Are the reward of sin;
Jesus calls—ere 'tis too late Come, prodigal, repent. "Dry up, for Christ's sake," suddenly shouted an indignant voice out of the mist.
A moment of startled silence.
But the Salvation Army was used to trouble.
With renewed vigour the chorus began again.
"What wilt thou in the world alone—" it pleaded in unison. "Cuddle," bawled the indignant voice again; "can't a man have peace here even?"
"Where Satan's wiles would thee seduce—" came the sudden shrill rejoinder.
"Like to see you old screws seduce me," was the prompt reply out of the mist.
I exploded.
And Pat could not contain herself any longer.
We shook with laughter at this duel in the graveyard.
The Salvation Army was aware that the benches here were the refuge of couples who did not know where else they could go to be alone in all the city's noise.
So they had resolved upon a telling blow. They would make a Sunday raid to save souls.
Pious, fanatical and loud the unschooled voices shrieked their message, while the guitars strummed out a steady wumba-wumba.
The graveyard came to life.
Giggles and shouts issued from the mist.