THE CATHEDRAL OF ARRAS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 87, 7 January 1919, Page 3

THE CATHEDRAL OF ARRAS

TRAGEDY OF A SHELLS© CITY. (By Captain Lord Dunsany.) On the great steps of Arras Cathedral I saw a' procession, in silence, standing still. They were in orderly and perfect lines, stirring or swaying slightly. Sometimes they bent their heads, sometimes two leaned together, but for the • most part they were motionless. It was the time when the fashion was just changing, and some were newly-attired in shining yellow,' while others still wore green. . ' I went up the steps amongst them, the only, human thing, for men and women worship no more in Arras Cathedral, and the trees have come instead; little humble things all less than four years old, in great numbers, thronging the steps processionally, and growing in perfect rows just where step meets step. They havo. come to Arras with the wind and the rain; which enter the nislrs together whenever they will,.and go. wherever man went; they have such a reverent air, the young limes on the three' flights of steps, that you would say thej did not know that Arras Cathedral was fallen on evil days, that they did not know they looked on ruin .and vast disaster, but thought that these great walls open to stars and sun were the natural and fitting place for.the worship of little weeds.

Behind them the shattered houses of Arras seemed to cluster about tho cathedral as, ono might fancy easily, hurt and frightened children, so wistful are their gaping windiks and old, gray, empty gables, so melancholy and puzzled.'' They are moro like a little old people como upon trouble, gazing at tTieir great elder companion and not knowing what to Jo. But the facts of Arras are sadder than a poet's most tragic fancies. In the western front of Arms Cathedral stand eight pillars visuig from the ground; above them stood'.four- more, Of the four' upper pillars the two <'ii tho loft are gone, swept away by shells from the north; and a shell has p:-.<ssed through the neck of one of the two that is left, just as a bullet might go through a, daffodil's stem.

The left-hand corner of that western wall has been caught from the-north by sonie tremendous shell which has torn tho whole corner, down in a mound of stone; and still the walls*have stood.

I went in through the western doorway. All along the nave lay a long heap of white stones, with grass and weeds on the top, and a little trodden path over the grasJ and weeds. This is all that remained of the roof of Arras Cathedral, and of any chairs or pews there may have been in the nave, or anything. that may have hung above them. It was all down but one slen'dcr. arch that crossed the nave just at the transept; it stood out against the sky; and all wTio saw it wondered how it stood- ■ ■ ■ .'

In-the southern aisle paues of creen glass, in twisted frames of- lend, 'here and there lingored, like lonely leaves of an apple tree after a hailstorm in spring. The aisles still had their roofs over them, .which those stout old walUs hold up in spite of all. - -~ Where the nave joins the transept the ruin is most enormous. Perhaps there was more to bring down there, so the Germans brought it down; there mny have been a tower there, for all I know, or a spire. ■•-■ ■

I-stood on the heap and looked towards the altar. - .To my left all was ruin. To my right-two old saints in stone stood;by the southern door. The door had been forced open long ago, and stood as-it was oponed partly broken. A great round hole gaped in the ground outside; •it was this that, had opened the door. Jitst beyond the big heap, on tho left of .the chancel, stood something l made of wood, which almost certainly had been the, orgnn.

As I looked at these things there passed through the ..desolate. sanctuaries, and down, an. aisle . past- pillars pitted with shrapnel, a sad old woman, sad.even for. a woman of North-east France. She seemed to bs looking after the mounds and stones that had once been the cathedral; perhaps she had once been the Bishop's servant, or the wife of one of. the vergers; she only remained of,nil who had heentherc in other .days, she and the pigeons- and jackdaws.. I..'spoke;', to her: All Arras.'.she said,..was: ruined.... The great cathedral was■ ruined;- her own family were ruined .utterly, and she pointed to where the sad houses gazed from forlorn dead windows. Absolute ruin, she said; but there must be no armistice. No armistice. No. It was necessary that there, should.be.no armiatice.atall.. No armistice will -Germans.

She passed on, resoluto. and sad, and the. guns boomed on ..beyond Arras. A French interpreter, with the sphinx's heads on his collar, showed be a picture postcard with a photograph of the chancel as it was five years ago. It was tho very chancel before. which • I, was standing. -To see that photograph, astonished rne, and to know that, the camera that took it must have stood where I was standing, only a little lower down, under tho great heap.

Though, out knew there had been an altar, there, and candles and roof. and carpet, and all the solemnity of a cathedral's interior, yet to see that photograph and to stand on that weedy heap, in the wind, under the jackdaws, was a contrast with which the mind fumbled.

I waked a little with the French interpreter. We "came to a little shrine in r the southern aisle. It had been all paved witii marble, and the marble was broken into hundreds of pieces, and someone liad carefully picked up all the bits, and laid them togothor on tho altar. And this pathetic heap' that was gathered of broken bits had drawn many to slop arid gaze at'it; and idly, as'sol-,' diers will, they had written their names on them; every bit had a name on it.. With, but a touch of irony the French-man-said: "All that is necessary to bring your name to. posterity is to write it on one of. those stones." "No," I said, "I will do it by describing all this." And we both laughed.

I have not done it yet: there is more to say ; of Arras. As I begin the tale of ruin and wrong, the man who did it tot-, tors. His gaudy power begins to stream away like the. leaves of autumn. Soon his throne will be bare, and I shall have but begun to say whilt I have to say of calamity in cathedral and little gardens of Arras.... ... ".'

The wintor of the Hohenzollerns will come; sceptre,, uniforms, stars, aud courtiers all gou«; still the world will not know half of the bitter wrongs of Arras. And spring will'bring a new time aud cover tho trenches with green, and the pigeons will preen themselves on the shattered towers, and the lime-trees along the step 3 will grow taller and brighter, and happier men will sing in the streets untroubled by any war lord. By then, perhaps' I may have told, to such as care to read, what such a war did in an ancient town, already romantic when romance was young, when war came suddenly without mercy, without pity, out of the North .and East, on little houses, carved galleries, and gardens, churches, cathedrals and the jackdaws' nests.