Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/87

 his strength and will to perfect himself for his office. The closely written sheets in the drawer of his writing-table could witness to the untiring diligence, the conscientious care with which week after week he had prepared his sermons—hoping that in the end he might succeed in captivating his hearers with the power of his words and the strength of his faith. But in vain!—No sooner did he on Sunday go into the pulpit and see all the strange eyes turned upon him, than all the warmth and conviction of his words froze on his lips. In despair he heard his sentences ring hollow and empty under the echoing arches, while he noticed an ever heavier drowsiness creeping over the whole congregation. It was as if an ever deeper and deeper gulf opened between him and the people, across which his voice could not reach—a dark and icy crevasse into which all his heavenward struggling words fell one by one like frozen birds. He stopped his troubled walk and stood in the deep embrasure of the window, looking out for a long time without moving. The sun shone with a golden light on the tall, fair-haired man, and as he stood there in his loose dressing gown, with his shoulder leaning against the edge of the wall, framed in, as it were, by the green ivy, he recalled the figure of some youthful monk gazing dreamily from his lonely cell, on the world which held all his longings. He could see almost the whole parish from his window. Straight below there was a corner