"And
Death?" The wind caught up the whisper "death" caressingly and took
it away from me over the city, and wove it in and out through all the
streets and all the dark lanes, and about the little chimneys, and the
windows.
Is there a way out for her?--Perhaps. There are some beings so full of
life that even the glutton Death must disgorge them.
III
THE LITTLE DEAD CHILD
In the little town of Gagri on the Caucasian shore of the Black Sea
there is a beautiful and wonderful church surviving from the sixth
century, a work of pristine Christianity. It is but the size of a
cottage, and just the shape of a child's Noah's Ark, but made of
great rough-hewn blocks of grey stone. One comes upon the building
unexpectedly. After looking at Gagri's ancient ruins, her fortresses,
her wall built by Mithridates, one sees suddenly in a shadowy close
six sorrowful little cypresses standing absolutely still--like heavily
dressed guardsmen--and behind the cypresses and their dark green
brooms, the grey wall of the church, solid, eternal. One's eyes rest
upon it as upon a perfect resting-place. If Gagri has an organic life,
this church must be its beating heart.
I came to Gagri one Saturday afternoon after the first two hundred and
fifty miles tramping of my pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and at this little
church I witnessed a strange sight.
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