Short Fiction · Chapter
The Monstrance explained
A German night raid on the English lines is thwarted when Sergeant-Major Karl Heinz, haunted by hallucinations of a ghostly procession from the destroyed St.
What happens
A German night raid on the English lines is thwarted when Sergeant-Major Karl Heinz, haunted by hallucinations of a ghostly procession from the destroyed St. Lambart's Church, screams and dies, causing the attack to fail. His diary reveals his descent into madness as he relives the atrocity he committed against a priest and a child.
Themes in this chapter
Madness and Psychological Horror
Karl Heinz's descent into hallucination and guilt, culminating in his fatal vision of the monstrance.
Supernatural and the Divine
The ghostly procession of children and the martyred priest, the monstrance, and the divine retribution.
Corruption and Evil
The atrocity of killing a priest and crucifying a child, and the haunting guilt that destroys the perpetrator.
Characters to notice
- Karl Heinz
German sergeant-major whose diary documents his sensory hallucinations and guilt over the massacre at St. Lambart's.
- Joseph Kleist
A fellow soldier who notices Karl Heinz's strange behavior and is dismissed as a stupid fool.
- Major Von und Zu
German officer leading the night raid, whose plans are ruined by Karl Heinz's sudden death.
Key passages
“Then it fell out in the sacring of the Mass that right as the priest heaved up the Host there came a beam redder than any rose and smote upon it, and then it was changed bodily into the shape and fashion of a Child having his arms stretched forth, as he had been nailed upon the Tree.”
During the consecration of the Mass, as the priest lifted the Host, a red beam struck it and transformed it into the form of a crucified child.
This epigraph foreshadows the vision of the monstrance and the child crucified at St. Lambart's.
“At that instant Karl Heinz leapt into the air with a scream that rent through the night and through all the roaring of the artillery. He cried in a terrible voice, 'The Glory of the Lord!' and plunged and pitched forward, stone dead.”
Karl Heinz suddenly jumped up, screamed 'The Glory of the Lord!' and fell dead.
His death is the climax of his hallucinatory guilt and the supernatural intervention.
“They said that it was he who killed the old priest and helped to crucify the little child against the church door. The baby was only three years old. He died calling piteously for 'mummy' and 'daddy.'”
Karl Heinz was the one who murdered the priest and assisted in crucifying a three-year-old child against the church door, as the child cried for its parents.
Reveals the atrocity that haunts Karl Heinz and leads to his vision of the monstrance.