Happy Christmas Eve!

 

Happy Christmas Eve -- it's a lovely time to be still and reflective. In this excerpt from the story Christmas Eve in Dorothy Richardson's collection Journey to Paradise, a group of disparate girls in a boarding house find some glory in the night despite themselves. They are all asked to go up to the room of a German girl who has bought herself a small Christmas tree, just for a few minutes -- 

The curtains were all thrown up over their rails leaving the room clear. Someone had pushed back the beds so that there was space on the linoleum-covered floor  for all the stand about the little tree. Its many candles glowed sharply in the cold air. Fraulein Braun stood near the tree as we all gathered in a rough circle. 

"What are we to do, Fraulein?" asked Miss Spencer briskly to cover a giggle from little Green.

"Are all here?" asked Fraulein in her deep voice.

"Everyone in the house, Fraulein."

Fraulein drew back into the awkward circle between Edith and the little Hindu who was standing with reverently bent head and her little hands clasped downwards before her. At the end of a moment Fraulein's rich voice rose and filled he large cold room.

'Sh - ti- il - le Nacht  / Hei - li - ge Nacht'

As she sang the room seemed to grow less cold. The sharp separate rays of the little candles changed to one rosy golden blur. 

When Fraulein's voice ceased there was silence. Miss Spencer looked about with a cheerful questioning face. She could be heard urging someone to do something. In a moment she would speak. I was aware of a stirring at my side and felt the flush that made Cook's face uniform with her nose. Her impulse had animated more than one but it was her old unused voice that broke the silence with song in which presently all joined as they could: 

'While shepherds watched their flocks by night

  All seated on the ground

The Angel of the Lord came down, 

  And glory shone around.'