Marc Chagall The Birthday

Marc Chagall The BirthdayMarc Chagall RainMarc Chagall Blue Lovers
stood, alarmed that something had slipped past their guard, and saw a gleam of light from the camping place; not firelight, though, nothing remotely like firelight.
They ran back on silent feet, arrows already nocked to their bowstrings, and stopped suddenly.
All the witches were asleep on the grass, and so were Will and Lyra. But surrounding the two children were a dozen or more tartan skirt and the boy with the wounded hand who was frowning in his sleep.
There was a stir at Lyra's neck. Pantalaimon, a snow-white ermine, opened his black eyes sleepily and gazed around unafraid. Later, Lyra would remember it as a dream. Pantalaimon seemed to accept the attention as Lyra's due, and presently he curled up again and closed his eyes.
Finally one of the creatures spread his wings wide. The others, as close angels, gazing down at them.And then Serafina understood something for which the witches had no word: it was the idea of pilgrimage. She understood why these beings would wait for thousands of years and travel vast distances in order to be close to something important, and how they would feel differently for the rest of time, having been briefly in its presence. That was how these creatures looked now, these beautiful pilgrims of rarefied light, standing around the girl with the dirty face and the