The Children of Alsace

The Children of Alsace is a Fiction Story Book. The book says that very air prayed. Souls thought of the risen Christ. Several thought of Alsace. "There is some blue sky", said a voice. "Some blue up there", repeated a woman's voice, as if in a dream. They scarcely heard it, in the roar of sounds which rose from the valley. Yet all eyes were raised at once. They saw in the sky, amidst the masses of fog 132 fleeing before the assailing sun, blue depths opening and opening with bewildering rapidity. And when they again looked downwards they perceived that the cloud of mist also was tearing itself to pieces on the slopes. It was the clearing up. Parts of the forest slipped, as it were, into the divisions made in the moving fog; then others; then black crevasses, the thickets, and rocks; then of a sudden the last rags of mist, drawn, thin, contorted, lamentable, went up in whirling masses, brushed against the terrace, and disappeared above. And the plain of Alsace appeared all blue and gold. One of those who saw it cried out: "How beautiful!" All leaned forward to see in the opening of the mountain the plain growing lighter and lighter as far as eye could see. All these Alsatian souls were touched. Three hundred villages of their own country lay below them scattered about amidst the young green of the cornfields.