The old man who was near the priest cast a glance in the direction of the garden and answered: "No; he wears his moustache in the French fashion and he looks like one of us." "I saw him walking with Mademoiselle Odile Bastian, of Alsheim," said the young woman. The group was reassured, and more so when Jean greeted the priest in Alsatian and asked: "Are the bells of Alsace late?" They all smiled, not because of what he had said, but because they felt at home among themselves without an inconvenient witness. Odile came in her turn and leaned against a wall on the right of the first group. Jean took up a similar position on the other side of the group. They were suffering from loving so much, from having said it, and from only being sure of themselves. The bells were not late. Their voices were encircled and enclosed by the rising mists. Suddenly they escaped from the cloudy masses, and it seemed as if each separate morsel of fog burst like a bubble on touching the wall and poured out on the summit of the sacred mountain all the harmony of the pealing bells. "Easter! Easter! The Lord is risen! He has changed the world and delivered men! The heavens are opened!" So sang the bells of Alsace. They were ringing from the foot of the mountain, and from the distance, and from far, far away, voices of the little bells, and voices of the great bells of cathedrals; voices which never ceased and from peal to peal were prolonged in re-echoing reverberations; voices that passed away lightly, intermittently, delicately, like a shuttle in a loom; a prodigious choir, whose singers were never visible to each other; cries of joy from a whole population of churches, songs of the spring eternal, which rose up from the depths of the misty plain and mounted to the summit of Sainte Odile to blend into one harmonious whole. The grandeur of this concert of pealing bells silenced the few folk gathered together up there. The 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 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!"