Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an excavation. He muttered against the men who wear helmets and carry clubs. Because he wanted to fall into their clutches, they seemed to regard him as a king who could do no wrong.

At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where the glitter and turmoil was but faint. He set his face down this toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct survives even when the home is a park bench.

But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted out to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against the convolutions of the iron fence.

The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered sleepily in the eaves--for a little while the scene might have been a country churchyard. And the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and collars.

 

索比往东走，穿过一条因翻修弄得高低不平的街道。他怒气冲天地把绸伞猛地掷进一个坑里。他咕咕哝哝地抱怨那些头戴钢盔、手执警棍的家伙。因为他一心只想落入法网，而他们则偏偏把他当成永不出错的国王⑾。

最后，索比来到了通往东区的一条街上，这儿的灯光暗淡，嘈杂声也若有若无。他顺着街道向麦迪逊广场走去，即使他的家仅仅是公园里的一条长凳，但回家的本能还是把他带到了那儿。

可是，在一个异常幽静的转角处，索比停住了。这儿有一座古老的教堂，样子古雅，显得零乱，是带山墙的建筑。柔和的灯光透过淡紫色的玻璃窗映射出来，毫无疑问，是风琴师在练熟星期天的赞美诗。悦耳的乐声飘进索比的耳朵，吸引了他，把他粘在了螺旋形的铁栏杆上。

月亮挂在高高的夜空，光辉、静穆；行人和车辆寥寥无几；屋檐下的燕雀在睡梦中几声啁啾——这会儿有如乡村中教堂墓地的气氛。风琴师弹奏的赞美诗拨动了伏在铁栏杆上的索比的心弦，因为当他生活中拥有母爱、玫瑰、抱负、朋友以及纯洁无邪的思想和洁白的衣领时，他是非常熟悉赞美诗的。