It was bitter, though, that Christmas Day, as it drew on to
evening, and night, became a sort of bank holiday, flat and
stale. The morning was so wonderful, but in the afternoon and
evening the ecstasy perished like a nipped thing, like a bud in
a false spring. Alas, that Christmas was only a domestic feast,
a feast of sweetmeats and toys! Why did not the grown-ups also
change their everyday hearts, and give way to ecstasy? Where was
the ecstasy?
How passionately the Brangwens craved for it, the ecstasy.
The father was troubled, dark-faced and disconsolate, on
Christmas night, because the passion was not there, because the
day was become as every day, and hearts were not aflame. Upon
the mother was a kind of absentness, as ever, as if she were
exiled for all her life. Where was the fiery heart of joy, now
the coming was fulfilled; where was the star, the Magi's
transport, the thrill of new being that shook the earth?
Still it was there, even if it were faint and inadequate. The
cycle of creation still wheeled in the Church year. After
Christmas, the ecstasy slowly sank and changed. Sunday followed
Sunday, trailing a fine movement, a finely developed
transformation over the heart of the family. The heart that was
big with joy, that had seen the star and had followed to the
inner walls of the Nativity, that there had swooned in the great
light, must now feel the light slowly withdrawing, a shadow
falling, darkening. The chill crept in, silence came over the
earth, and then all was darkness. The veil of the temple was
rent, each heart gave up the ghost, and sank dead.
They moved quietly, a little wanness on the lips of the
children, at Good Friday, feeling the shadow upon their hearts.
Then, pale with a deathly scent, came the lilies of
resurrection, that shone coldly till the Comforter was
given.
But why the memory of the wounds and the death? Surely Christ
rose with healed hands and feet, sound and strong and glad?
Surely the passage of the cross and the tomb was forgotten? But
no--always the memory of the wounds, always the smell of
grave-clothes? A small thing was Resurrection, compared with the
Cross and the death, in this cycle.
So the children lived the year of christianity, the epic of
the soul of mankind. Year by year the inner, unknown drama went
on in them, their hearts were born and came to fulness, suffered
on the cross, gave up the ghost, and rose again to unnumbered
days, untired, having at least this rhythm of eternity in a
ragged, inconsequential life.
But it was becoming a mechanical action now, this drama:
birth at Christmas for death at Good Friday. On Easter Sunday
the life-drama was as good as finished. For the Resurrection was
shadowy and overcome by the shadow of death, the Ascension was
scarce noticed, a mere confirmation of death.