The Shadow of the Cathedral

In the lower cloister he again met Silver Stick, who was talking to the gardener's widow, showing her contemptuously a bunch of wheat ears tied with a red ribbon. He had found it in the holy water stoup by the Puerta del Alegria. Every year on the day of Corpus he had found the same offering in the same place; an unknown had thus dedicated to the Church the first wheat of the year.

"It must be a madman," said the priest. "What is the good of this? What does this bunch mean? If at least it had been a cart of sheaves as in the good old times of the tenths!"

And while he threw the ears with contempt into a flower border in the garden, Gabriel thought with delight of the atavic force which had resuscitated in a Catholic church, the pagan offering: the homage to the divinity of the firstfruits of the earth fertilised by the spring.

The choir was ended and the mass beginning when Gabriel entered the Cathedral, the lower servants were discussing at the door of the sacristy the great event of the day. His Eminence had not come down to the choir and would not assist at the procession. He said he was ill, but those of the household laughed at this excuse, remembering that the evening before he had walked as far as the Hermitage of the Virgin de la Vega. The truth was he would not meet his Chapter; he was furious with them, and showed his anger by refusing to preside over them in the choir.

Gabriel strolled through the naves. The congregation of the faithful was greater than on other days, but even so the Cathedral seemed deserted. In the crossways, kneeling between the choir and the high altar, were several nuns in starched linen bibs and pointed hoods, in charge of sundry groups of children dressed in black, with red or blue stripes according to the colleges to which they belonged; a few officials from the academy, fat and bald, listened to the mass standing, bending their heads over their cuirass. In this scattered assemblage, listening to the music, stood out the pupils from the school of noble ladies, some of them quite girls, others proud-looking young women in all the pride of their budding beauty, looking on with glowing eyes, all dressed in black silk, with mantillas of blonde mounted over high combs with bunches of roses—aristocratic ladies with "manolesca" grace, escaped from a picture by Goya.

Gabriel saw his nephew the Tato dressed in his scarlet robes like the noble Florentine, striking the pavement with his staff to scare the dogs. He was talking with a group of shepherds from the mountains, swarthy men twisted and gnarled as vine shoots, in brown jackets, leather sandals, and thonged leggings; women with red kerchiefs and greasy and mended garments that had descended through several generations. They had come down from their mountains to see the Corpus of Toledo, and they walked through the naves with wonder in their eyes, starting at the sound of their own footsteps, trembling each time the organ rolled, as though fearing to be turned out of that magic palace, which seemed to them like one in a fairy tale. The women pointed out with their fingers the coloured glass windows, the great rosettes on the porches, the gilded warriors on the clock of the Puerta de la Feria, the tubes of the organs, and finally remained open-mouthed in stupid wonder. The Perrero in his scarlet garments seemed like a prince to them, and overwhelmed with the respect they felt for him, they could not succeed in understanding what he said, but when the Tato threatened with his staff a mastiff following closely at his master's heels, those simple people decided to leave the church sooner than abandon the faithful companion of their wild mountain life.

Gabriel looked through the choir railings; both the upper and lower stalls were full. It was a great festival, and not only were all the canons and beneficiaries in their places, but all the priests of the chapel of the kings,[31 - The kings of Spain are canons of Toledo Cathedral, and are fined in case of absence on festival days.] and the prebends of the Muzarabé chapel—those two small churches who live quite apart with traditional autonomy inside the Cathedral of Toledo.

In the middle of the choir Luna saw his friend the Chapel-master in his crimped and pleated surplice, waving a small bâton. Around him were grouped about a dozen musicians and singers, whose voices and instruments were completely smothered each time the organ sounded from above, while the priest directed with a resigned look the music, which lost itself feeble and swamped in the solitude of the immense naves.

At the High Altar, on its square car, stood the famous Custodia, executed by the celebrated master Villalpando. A Gothic shrine, exquisitely worked and chiselled, bright with the shimmering of its gold in the light of the wax tapers, and of such delicate and airy work that the slightest motion made it shiver, shaking its finials like ears of corn.

Those invited to the procession were arriving in the Cathedral. The town dignitaries in black robes, professors from the academy in full dress with all their decorations, officers of the Civil Guard, whose quaint uniform reminded one of that of the soldiers of the early part of the century. Through the naves with affectedly skipping steps came the children, dressed as angels—angels à la Pompadour, with brocaded coat, red-heeled shoes, blonde lace frills, tin wings fastened to their shoulders, and mitres with plumes on their white wigs. The Primacy got out for this festivity all its traditional vestments. The gala uniform of all the church attendants belonged to the eighteenth century, the time of its greatest prosperity. The two men who were to guide the car had powdered hair, black coats, and knee breeches, like the priests of the last century. The vergers and Wooden Staffs wore starched ruffs and perukes, and though they had scarcely enough to eat, brocade and velvet covered all the people from the Claverias; even the acolytes wore gold embroidered dalmatics.

The High Altar was decorated by the "Tanta Monta" tapestries—those famous hangings of the Catholic kings, with emblems and shields, given by Cisneros to the Cathedral. The auxiliary bishop said mass, and his attendant deacons were perspiring under the traditional mantles and chasubles covered with beautiful raised embroidery in high and splendid relief, as stiff and uncomfortable as ancient armour.

The surroundings of the Cathedral were disturbed by the gathering for the procession; the doors of the sacristies slammed, opened and shut hurriedly by the various officials and people employed. In that quiet and monotonous life the annual occurrence of a procession which had to pass through many streets caused as much confusion and disturbance as an adventurous expedition to a distant country.

When the mass ended the organ began to play a noisy and disorderly march, rather like a savage dance, while the procession was being marshalled in order. Outside the Cathedral the bells were ringing, the band of the academy had ceased playing its quick march, and the officers' words of command and the rattle of the muskets could be heard as the cadets drew up in companies by the Puerta Llana.

Don Antolin, with his great silver staff and a pluvial of white brocade, went from one place to another collecting the employees of the Church; Gabriel saw him approaching, red-faced and perspiring.

"To your post; it is time."

And he led him to the High Altar by the Custodia. Gabriel and eight other men crept inside the scaffolding, raising the cloth with which its sides were covered. They were obliged to bend themselves inside the erection, and their duty was to push it, so that it should move along on its hidden wheels. Their only duty was to push it; outside, the two servants in black clothes and white wigs were in charge of the front and back shaft or tiller, which guided the eucharistic car through the tortuous streets. Gabriel was placed by his companions in the centre; he was to warn them when to stop and when to recommence their march. The monumental Custodia was mounted on a platform with a great counterpoise, and between it and the framework of the car was about a hand's breadth of space, through which Gabriel looked, thus transmitting the orders of the front pilot.

"Attention! March!" shouted Gabriel, obeying an outside signal.

And the sacred car began to move slowly down the inclined wooden plane that covered the steps of the High Altar. It was obliged to stop on passing the railings. All the people knelt, and Don Antolin and the Wooden Staffs having opened a way between them, the canons advanced in their ample red robes, the auxiliary bishop with his gilded mitre, and the other dignitaries in white linen mitres without ornament whatsoever. They all knelt around the Custodia. The organ was silent, and, accompanied by the hoarse blare of a trombone, they intoned a hymn in adoration of the Sacrament; the incense rose in blue clouds around the Custodia, veiling the brilliancy of its gold. When the hymn ceased the organ began to play again, and the car once more resumed its march. The Custodia trembled from base to summit, and the motion made a quantity of little bells hanging on to its Gothic adornments tinkle like a cascade of silver. Gabriel walked along holding on to one of the crossbeams, with his eyes fixed on the pilots, feeling on his legs the movements of those who pushed this scaffolding, so similar to the cars of Indian idols.

On coming out of the Cathedral by the Puerta Llana, the only door in the church on a level with the street, Gabriel could take in the whole procession at a glance. He could see the horses of the Civil Guards breaking the regularity of the march, the players of the city kettledrums dressed in red, and the crosses of the different parishes grouped without order round the enormous and extremely heavy banner of the Cathedral, like a huge sail covered with embroidered figures. Beyond, all the centre of the street was clear, flanked on either side by rows of clergy and soldiers carrying tapers, the deacons with their censers, assisted by the roccoco angels carrying the vessels for the Asiatic perfume, and the canons in their extremely valuable historical capes. Behind the sacrament were grouped the authorities, and the battalion of cadets brought up the rear, their muskets on their arms, their shaven heads bare, keeping step to the time of the march.

Gabriel breathed with delight the air of the public streets. He who had seen all the great capitals of Europe admired the streets of the ancient city after his long seclusion in the Cathedral. They seemed to him very populous, and he felt the surprise that great modern improvements must cause to those used to a retired and sedentary life.

The balconies were hung with ancient tapestries and shawls from Manilla; the streets were covered with awnings, and the pavement spread thickly with sand, so that the eucharistic car should glide easily over the pointed cobble stones.

Up the hills the Custodia advanced laboriously, the men inside the car sweating and gasping. Gabriel coughed, his spine aching with the enclosure in the movable prison, and the dignity of the march was disturbed by the words of command from the Canon Obrero, who, in scarlet robes with a staff in his hand, directed the procession, reproving the pilots and those who pushed the car inside for their jerky and irregular movements.

Apart from these discomforts, Gabriel was delighted with his extraordinary escapade through the town; he laughed, thinking what the crowd, kneeling in veneration, would have said had they known whose eyes were looking out at them from underneath the car. No doubt many of those officials escorting God, in their white trousers, red coats, with swords by their sides and cocked hats would have news of his existence; they would surely have heard some one speak of him, and they probably kept his name in their memory as that of a social enemy. And this reprobate, rejected by all, concealed in a hole in the Cathedral like those adventurous birds who rested in its vaultings, was the man who was guiding the footsteps of God through this most religious city!

A little after mid-day the Custodia returned to the Cathedral, passing in front of the Puerta del Mollete. Gabriel saw the exterior walls hung with the famous tapestries. As soon as the farewell hymns were ended the canons despoiled themselves quickly of their vestments, rushing to the door on their dismissal without saluting. They were going to their dinners much later than usual, as this extraordinary day upset the even course of their lives. The church, so noisy and illuminated in the morning, emptied itself rapidly, and silence and twilight once more reigned in it.

Esteban was furious when he saw Gabriel emerging from the eucharistic car.

"You will kill yourself, such work is not for you. What caprice could have seized you?"

Gabriel laughed. Yes, it was a caprice, but he did not repent of it. He had taken a turn through the town without being seen, and he could give his brother sufficient for two days' maintenance; he wished to work, not to be a heavy charge on him.

Wooden Staff was softened.

"You idiot, have I asked anything of you? Do I want anything else but that you should live quietly and get better?"

But, as though he wished to acknowledge this exertion on his brother's part by something which would please him, when he returned to the Claverias he dropped his usual sullen face, and spoke to his daughter during the meal.

Towards evening the Claverias were quite deserted. Don Antolin hurried down with his tickets, rejoicing in the knowledge that many strangers were waiting for him. The Tato and the bell-ringer had slipped furtively down the tower stairs, dressed in their best clothes; they were going to the bull-fight. Sagrario obliged to be idle in order to keep the feast day holy, had gone to the shoemaker's house, and while he was showing the giants to the servants and soldiers of the academy, and the peasants from the country, Luna's niece helped to mend the clothes for the poor woman crushed by poverty and the superabundance of children.

When the Chapel-master and the Wooden Staff went down to the choir, Gabriel went out into the cloister. He could only see there a cadet who was walking up and down, with his hand on the pommel of his sword, holding it horizontally like the fiery tizonas[32 - Tizona—name of the Cid's sword.] of former days. Luna recognised him by the full pantaloons and the wasplike waist, which made the Tato declare that this particular cadet wore stays—it was Juanito the cardinal's nephew. He often walked in the cloister, hoping for an opportunity to talk with Leocadia, the beautiful daughter of the Virgin's sacristan. From the parents he had nothing to fear, but the future warrior had a certain dread of Tomasa, as the old lady looked on these visits with an evil eye, and threatened to make them known to his uncle the Cardinal.

Gabriel had often spoken to the cadet, for when the youth met him in the cloister he always stopped to speak, endeavouring by the platitudes of his conversation to justify his presence in the Claverias; but Luna was surprised to meet him there on a festival afternoon.

"Are you not going to the bull-fight?" he inquired. "I thought everyone from the academy would be in the Plaza."

Juanito smiled, caressing his moustache; it was his favourite gesture, as it raised his arm, giving him the satisfaction of displaying the sleeve adorned with sergeant's stripes. He was not a common cadet, he had his stripes, and though this did not seem much to one who dreamed of being a general, still it was a step in the right direction. No; he did not go to bull-fights. In truth he was an habitué but he had sacrificed himself in order to talk for a whole afternoon with his sweetheart at the door of her house in the silence of the Claverias. The grandmother had gone down into the garden, and "Virgin's Blue" would not be long in going out and leaving the coast clear, as if the matter in no way concerned him. "The beautiful evening, friend Gabriel!" He had far more serious and important affairs than the new comers at the academy, who spent all their Sundays at the cafés, or walking up and down like fools—everyone at the academy, even the professors, envied him his sweetheart.

"And when is the wedding to be?" said Gabriel gaily.

Master Stripes looked most important as he replied: "There were many things to be done before—first of all to bring his uncle to consent, which might not be easy, and to follow the guiding of his good star to attain a certain rank; but he was intended for great things, so it was only a matter of a few years.

"I, friend Luna, am of the stuff of young generals; it is the good luck of the family. My uncle, when he was only an acolyte, was certain he would become a cardinal, and he succeeded. I shall rise much faster. Besides, you know that to be an archbishop of Toledo is not a small thing. My uncle has many friends in the palace, and commands in the ministry of war just as though he were a general. In point of fact he is far more a soldier than a cleric! And to prove it to you, there is the only thing he has ever written, a prayer to the Virgin for the soldiers to recite before they go into action."

"And you, Juanito, do you really feel any vocation for a military life?"

"A great deal—ever since I knew how to open books and read them I have wished to rival those great captains that I saw in the prints, erect on their horses, with swords in their hands, proud and handsome. Believe me, no one enters on this career without a vocation; many are entered in the seminaries against their will, but no one can make a soldier by force; anyone who comes to the academy has the longing in himself."

"And are all of them as sure of the result as you are?"

"Oh, yes; all," said the cardinal's nephew smiling, "except that the immense majority have not such probabilities of making a name. But, such as we are, there is not one amongst us who dreams of the possibility of vegetating as a captain in a reserve regiment, or of dying of old age as a commandant. We all of us see first of all youth glorified by the uniform, full of adventures (for you know all the women fight for us), by the joy of life, loved and respected everywhere, head and shoulders above our countrymen; and when old age approaches, and we begin to get fat and bald, the gold braid of a general, politics, and, who knows, possibly the portfolio of war! This is in everyone's thoughts. No one believes but that the future holds a bâton for him, and that he has only to unhook it and fasten it to his belt. I know for certain what is awaiting me, the rest dream and hope for it, and so we go on living."

Gabriel smiled as he listened to the cadet.

"You are all deceiving yourselves, like those poor youths who enter the seminaries, believing that a mitre awaits them or a fat benefice on the other side of the door. It is the influence and attraction still exercised by the great things that have been. Let us see—apart from the material result of the profession—why do you become soldiers?"

"For the sake of glory!" said the cadet pompously, remembering the harangues of the colonel director of the academy. "For our country, whose defence is entrusted to us! and for the honour of our flag!"

"Glory!" said Gabriel, ironically. "I know all about that. Very often, seeing you all so young and inexperienced, so full of vain hopes, I have reconstructed in my own mind what might be called the psychology of the cadet. I can guess all that you thought before entering the academy, and I foresee the bitter and crushing disillusion that awaits you on leaving it. The history of wars and the artistic trappings of the uniform have seduced your youth. Afterwards, warlike tales of an irresistible fascination—Bonaparte with his little band crossing the bridge at Arcola amid showers of bullets. And then our own generals, not to go further—Espartero at Luchana, O'Donnel in Africa, and, above all, Prim, that almost legendary leader, directing the battalion at Castillejos with his sword. 'I wish to be the same,' say these youths; 'where one man has arrived another may also succeed'; enthusiasm is taken for predestination, and each one thinks himself created by God on purpose to be a famous leader. In the meanwhile you live in Toledo, dreaming of glory, of hairbreadth enterprises, of gigantic battles and noisy triumphs. But when, with the two stars on your arm you go to a regiment, the first thing that comes to meet you at the barrack gate, even before you receive the salute of the sentry, is the ugly and disagreeable reality. He who dreams of covering himself with glory and becoming a great leader before he is thirty, thinking of nothing but strategic combinations and original fortifications, must occupy himself with the washing and decency of a lot of wild lads, who come in from the fields reeking with excessive health; try the rations, discuss drawers and shirts, calculate the lasting of ankle boots and hempen shoes, and he who never went near the kitchen at home, was most carefully looked after by his mother, and thought that everything was women's work except giving words of command and drawing soldiers up in line, now finds the first requirement in a regiment is to be cook, tailor, shoemaker, etc., very often receiving reprimands from his superiors if he prove lazy in those duties."

"That is true," said Juanito laughing; "but without these things there cannot be an army, and an army is necessary."

"We are not discussing if it is necessary or no. I only wish to point out that you (or perhaps not you, as you enter on a good footing, but certainly your companions) are self-deceivers, and are preparing without knowing it the shipwreck of your lives, precisely like those other youths who, poorer, or perhaps less energetic, crowd to enter the Church. The Church has come to an end as there is no longer faith; military glory has ended in Spain as there are no longer wars of conquest, and our character as strong fighting men has been lost for centuries. If we have a war, it is either civil or colonial—wars that might be called disasters—without glory and without profit, but in which men die as at Thermopyle or Austerlitz, as a man can only die once; but without the consolation of fame, or of public applause, without in fact that aureole that you call glory. You have all been born too late; you are the warriors of a people who must perforce live in peace; just as those seminarists will be the future priests in a country where there are no longer miracles nor faith, only routine and utter stagnation of thought."

"But if we have no foreign wars, if conquests have come to an end, we serve at least to defend the integrity of Spanish soil, to guard our own homes. Is it that you think," said the cadet nettled, "we are incapable of dying for our country?"

"I do not doubt it; that is the only thing Spaniards are capable of doing, to die most heroically, but in the end to die. Our history for the last two centuries has been nothing but a tale of heroic deaths—'Glorious defeat in such a place,' 'Heroic disaster in some other.' By sea and by land we have astonished the world, throwing ourselves blindly into danger, showing a good front, without flinching, with the stoicism of a Chinaman. But nations do not grow great from their contempt of death, but through their ability to preserve life. The Poles were the terror of the Turks, and some of the best soldiers in Europe, yet Poland has ceased to exist. If any great European power could invade us—you will remark I say could, for in these things the wish is not the same as the power, I know exactly what would happen; the Spaniards would know how to die, but you may be perfectly certain the invaders would not require more than two battles to sweep away entirely all our military preparations. And all this, which could be scattered in a couple of days, what sacrifices it costs the country!"