Gabriel felt someone pulling his jacket, and turning, saw the gardener"s widow.
"Come, nephew, we have got her here; she is waiting for you in the cloister."
Coming out, the Senora Tomasa pointed to a woman sitting crouched on the stone coping of the garden, wrapped in an old cloak, and with the headkerchief drawn down over her eyes.
Gabriel would never have recognised her. He remembered the pretty smiling face of former years, and he looked almost with horror at the tarnished youth, haggard with prominent cheek-bones, of the face before him. The eyes deep sunk in the sockets without eyebrows or eyelashes, with the pupils still beautiful, but dulled with a gla.s.sy opacity. Everything about her revealed poverty and desolation; the dress was a summer one, and from under it showed her split boots much too large for her feet.
"Salute him, child," said the old woman. "It is your Uncle Gabriel, one of G.o.d"s angels, in spite of his misfortunes, and you owe it to him that we searched for you."
The gardener"s widow pushed Sagrario towards her Uncle, but the young woman lowered her head, moved her shoulders and drew back, as though she could not endure the presence of a member of her family; she covered her face with her wretched cloak to hide her tears.
"Aunt, let us go home," said Gabriel, "it is not good for the child to be here."
At the cloister staircase they made the young woman pa.s.s on in front; she went up with her head bent and without looking, as though her feet trod those broken steps instinctively.
"We arrived from Madrid this morning," said the gardener"s widow as they went up. "I kept her at an inn till it was time to bring her to the Cathedral in the evening. It is the best time, for Esteban is in the choir, and you will have time to settle things here. I spent three days there. Ay, Gabriel, my son, what things I have seen, what h.e.l.ls there are for poor women! and we call ourselves Christians, but I think we are fiends! Mercifully I had friends at court--some old bell-ringers who had been in the Cathedral and who remembered the gardener"s widow. I wanted everything, even money, to get this unhappy girl out of the devil"s clutches."
The upper cloister was quite deserted. On arriving at the door of the Lunas the girl seemed to wake up, and drew quickly back with a look of terror, as though inside the "habitation" some great danger was awaiting her.
"Go in, woman, go in," said the aunt; "it is your home. You had to come back some time or other."
And she pushed her till she was through the door. Once inside the sitting-room her tears ceased; she looked round with astonishment, no doubt surprised at finding herself there. Her eyes examined everything with a sort of stupefaction, as though marvelling that everything should be in the same place as five years before, and with an exact.i.tude that made her doubt if such a long time had really elapsed.
Nothing seemed changed in that little world under the shadow of the Cathedral. She only, who had left it in the bloom of her youth, now returned aged and broken.
There was a long silence between the three people.
"Your room, Sagrario," said Gabriel at last gently, "is the same as when you left it. Go in and do not come out till I call you. Be calm and do not cry; trust me. You do not know me well, but the aunt will have told you that I am interested in your fate. Your father will soon be coming; hide yourself and be silent. I repeat it again, do not come out till I call you."
When the old woman and her nephew were alone they could hear the girl"s suffocating sobs that burst out on seeing her old room.
Afterwards they heard a sound as though she were throwing herself on the bed, and the violence of her grief seemed to become more and more uncontrolled.
"Poor child!" said the old woman, who was very nearly crying also, "she is good, and she has repented of her sins; if only her father had sought her out when that rascal deserted her, what shame and misery it would have spared her. And her health? I really think she is worse than you are, Gabriel. Oh, those men! with their honour which is nothing more than lies! What is honourable is to be charitable and compa.s.sionate to others, and to harm no one. I said this the other day when I was shocked at the shamelessness of my son-in-law, who was furious at my going to Madrid to find the child. He spoke of the honour of the family, and that if Sagrario returned no decent people could live in the Cathedral, and that he could not allow his daughter to stand at the door; and he such a thief that he steals the Virgin"s wax every day, and deceives the devout who pay him for ma.s.ses that are never said; that is why his skin shines so and he is so fat. With so much honour."
After a short silence the old woman looked undecidedly at Gabriel.
"Well, shall we begin the struggle? Shall I call Esteban?"
"Yes, call him, he will be in the Cathedral. And you, shall you dare to be present at the interview?"
"No, son, manage it yourself. You know Esteban, and you know me. I should either begin to cry, or I should turn and rend him for his obstinacy. You will manage better by yourself, for this G.o.d has given you those talents that you have used so badly."
The old woman went away, and Gabriel remained alone for more than half an hour, looking out of a window into the deserted cloister. The yearly commemoration of the death of G.o.d spread in the priestly tribe on the roofs, an atmosphere of sadness even more marked than that inside the church. All the women and children of the Claverias were down below admiring the monument, the "habitacions" seemed quite deserted. As he sat Gabriel saw his brother pa.s.s by the window, and in another moment he appeared at the door.
"What do you want, Gabriel? What has happened to you? The aunt frightened me with her summons. Are you worse?"
"Sit down, Esteban. I am well, calm yourself."
The "Wooden Staff" looked with surprise at Gabriel; his strange seriousness alarmed him and the prolonged silence in which he appeared to be arranging his thoughts without knowing where to begin.
"Speak, man! Do make a beginning; you alarm me."
"Brother," said Gabriel gravely, "you know very well that I have respected the mystery in your life that I found on my return here. You said to me, "My daughter is dead," and you never showed any wish to speak of her, and you can say if I have ever touched your old wound by the slightest allusion."
"Well, and what then? When are you going to stop?" said Esteban, becoming very gloomy; "why do you speak to me on a day so holy of things that cause me so much pain?"
"Esteban, we shall never understand each other if you hold on to your prejudices. Do not make that gesture, but listen to me calmly; do not act like an automaton, pulled by the same wires that moved our grandfathers and our ancestors. Be a man, and act according to your own thoughts. You and I have different beliefs. Setting aside religion which I know is a consolation to you, you know that I am silent as to mine, so as not to render my life here impossible. But apart from this, you believe that the family is a work of G.o.d, an inst.i.tution of supernatural origin. I believe it to be a human inst.i.tution based on the necessities of the species. You condemn for ever anyone who betrays the laws of the family, or who deserts his banner, you sentence him to death and oblivion. I pity his weakness and forgive.
We understand honour from a different point of view. You believe in the Castillian honour--that traditional and barbarous honour, more cruel and dismal even than dishonour; a theatrical honour, whose impulses are never founded on human feeling, but on the fear of what others will say, the desire to appear greater and more dignified in the eyes of others than to your own conscience. For the adulterous wife, death; for the murderer, revenge; for the fugitive daughter, contempt and forgetfulness; this is your gospel. I have another standard; for the wife who forgets her duties, contempt and oblivion; for that fragment of our own flesh who flies from us, love, support, gentleness, even endeavouring to compa.s.s her return to us. Esteban, we are separated by our beliefs, the gulf of centuries lies between us, but you are my brother, we love each other, and I only desire your good. I bear the same name of which you are so proud, and I loved our poor parents as much as you could love them, and in the name of all these I tell you that this situation must come to an end; you must not live insensible and frozen in what you call your dignity, without the remembrance of your daughter wandering about the world, troubling you.
You, who are so kind, who have sheltered me in the most difficult crisis of my life, how can you sleep, how can you eat, without your life being embittered by the remembrance of your lost daughter? What do you know about her now? May she not be dying of hunger while you eat? May she not be lying in a hospital while you are living in the home of your fathers?"
Esteban"s brow contracted, and he wore his gloomiest look as he listened to his brother.
"It is useless for you to strive, Gabriel, nothing can come of it.
Have I denied you anything? Am I not ready to do anything for my brother? But do not speak to me of that; she has caused me much pain, she has broken my life, how I did not die, I know not. Have you thought well that for centuries the family of the Lunas have been the mirror of the Cathedral, respected by even the archbishops, and now, suddenly to find oneself among the lowest, exposed to the ridicule of all and looked upon with compa.s.sion by the veriest little acolyte!
What I have suffered! The times I have wept with rage alone in this home, hearing what they were saying behind my back. And then," he added quietly as though grief were paralysing his voice, "there was that unhappy martyr who died of shame; my poor wife who left the world so as not to see my grief and the contempt of others! And do you wish me to forget all this? For the rest, Gabriel, I cannot express what I feel as well as you do. But honour--is honour. It is to live in my house without fear of being shamed, to sleep at night without fearing to see in the darkness our father"s eyes, asking why I allow a lost woman to live under the same roof that the Lunas won for themselves by centuries of service to the house of G.o.d; it is to avoid people mocking at our family. Let them say, "Those Lunas! how unfortunate they are," but they shall never say the Lunas are a family wanting in shame. By our love, brother, leave me; do not speak to me of this.
Those evil doctrines have poisoned your mind; not only have you ceased to believe in G.o.d, but you have ceased to believe in honour."
"And what is all this?" said Gabriel, warming. "You yourself do not know. "Honour is honour." Well, I say, children are children. You, man of prejudices, you do not wait to consider that those beings are the continuation of our own existence. Your religion makes you think children are a fruit from G.o.d, nevertheless you think yourself better and more perfect when you reject and curse those gifts of Heaven if they cause you any trouble. No, Esteban, the love of children and pity for their faults ought to come before all prejudices. This eternal life of the soul, that lying promise of religion, is only true through our children. The soul dies with the body; it is no more than a manifestation of our own thoughts, and thought is a cerebral function, but children perpetuate our own being throughout the generations and the centuries; it is they who make us immortal, and that preserve and transmit something of our personality, even as we have inherited something from our ancestors. He who forgets those beings who are his own creation is more worthy of execration than he who leaves life by suicide. The disappointments of life, the laws and customs invented by men, what are they before the instinctive affection we feel for beings that have proceeded from ourselves, and who perpetuate the infinite variety of our habits and thoughts? I abhor those wretches who, in order not to disturb the commonplace peace of matrimony, abandon the children they have outside the house. Paternity is the most n.o.ble of all animal functions, but the animals have more courage and dignity than man in fulfilling it. No animal of the higher sort abandons or disowns its cub, and yet there are many men who turn their backs on their children for fear of what people will say. If I, having a son, were enamoured of the most beautiful woman in the world, and she required me to forget that son, I would stifle my pa.s.sion sooner than abandon the little one. If my son sinned against every human law, and was sent to prison, even there would I follow him, defying the execration of the world, sooner than deny that he is my work. We are united for ever to the creatures to whom we give life, it is a compromise of solidarity that we make with the species when we work for its continuance. He who breaks the chain and flies is a coward."
"You will not convince me, Gabriel," screamed Esteban. "I will not!--I will not!"
"I repeat it is cowardly on your part. This honour that weighs so heavily on you is a cruel and antiquated honour that settles all the conflicts of life by shedding blood. Why do you not seek the man who stole your daughter? Why do you not kill him like a father in an old play? Is it because you are a fearful man and have not learnt the art of murder, and that arms are his profession? If you had taken lawless vengeance, relying only on what you think your right, his powerful family would have retaliated on you; but you have not revenged yourself through an instinct of self-preservation, through fear of prison and all the punishments invented by society; you have been afraid in spite of your anger, and this fear you indulge at the expense of cruelty to the weaker creature. Your anger only falls on your daughter. Come, Esteban, this is not worthy of a man."
The "Wooden Staff" shook his head obstinately.
"You will not convince me, I do not wish to hear you. That woman shall not return here; did she not leave me? Let her follow her own path."
"She left you from impulses of that instinct which all healthy beings possess. That instinct for the preservation of the species, which poetry beautifies and which it calls "Love." If she had left you after receiving the blessing of a man before an altar, you would have been delighted, and would have received her with open arms whenever she came to see you. She left you to be deceived, to fall into misery and shame, and, seeing her so unhappy, does she not deserve more pity at your hands than if you saw her living happily? Reflect, Esteban, on the way in which your poor daughter fell. What had you taught her to enable her to defend herself from the evil in the world? How was she armed to preserve intact what you call honour? You and your wife had set her the example of the respect due to wealth and high birth by allowing that young man to come to your house, thinking it an honour that a gentleman should have fallen in love with your daughter. When the inevitable results of social inequality came about she could not give him up; she had one of those n.o.ble natures that rise in revolt against the prejudices of the world, even at the risk of suffering all the bitterness of their rebellion, and she fell vanquished. Whom can you blame? Her ignorance, her life of isolation from the world, or yourselves who never taught her better, and who, blinded by ambition, let her wander to the edge of the precipice? Blame her less than anybody. Unhappy girl! She has paid with interest her n.o.ble defiance of social prejudices. She has been vanquished in the social fight--a corpse that has to be buried; and you, her father, ought to be the one to fulfil that work of mercy."
Esteban, with his head bent, continued to make gestures of refusal.
"Brother," said Gabriel solemnly; "if you hold tenaciously to your refusal I have only one thing more to say. If your daughter does not return here, I must go. Everyone has his scruples; you fear the gossip of the people; I fear myself and what my thoughts can throw in my face in my solitary moments. Since I have been your guest I have thought constantly of your daughter, and ever since I have known what happened in this house I have proposed to myself that the unhappy victim should return here. You will not let her return? Well then, I must go. I should be a thief if I ate your bread while a creature who is flesh of your flesh suffers hunger, or if I should be nursed in my illness while she, who is possibly worse than I am, has no friendly hand to comfort her. If she does not return, I am not your brother, but an intruder, usurping the share of affection and comfort that ought to fall to her. Brother, everyone has his own code of morality; yours is taught by the priests, mine I have made for myself, and though it is less apparent, it may very likely be more strict. In the name of my morality I say to you, Esteban, my brother, either your daughter returns here or I go away. I must return to the world to be persecuted like a wild beast, to the hospital, to the prison, to die like a dog in the ditch by the roadside. I do not know what will become of me, but one thing is certain, it is that I shall go to-morrow, or even to-day, so as not to enjoy a moment more what is not mine. I, who consider the appropriation of the goods of the world by a privileged minority as an iniquitous robbery, cannot enjoy knowingly the comforts that belong by natural right to another unhappy being. I can only enjoy them sharing them with her."
Esteban had risen to his feet with a gesture of despair.
"Are you mad, Gabriel? Do you wish to leave me? And you say it so calmly? Your presence here is the only joy of my life after so many misfortunes. I am accustomed to see you. I must care for you, you are my whole family; before I had no interest, I lived without hope. Now I have one, to see you strong and well, and can you say so carelessly that you will leave me? No, you shall not go--only this was wanting to me--after the daughter, the brother; kill me once for all!--Lord G.o.d, take me to Thyself!"
And the simple servant of the Church raised his hands in supplication while his eyes filled with tears.
"Be calm, Esteban. Let us speak like men, without exclamations and tears. Look at me, I am calm, but do not think for that it is less certain that I shall go to-day if you do not grant me what I pray."
"But--and she? Where is she that you plead so earnestly for her?" said Esteban. "Have you seen her and spoken to her? Is she in Toledo? Have you with the insolence of your unbelief even brought her into the Cathedral?"
Gabriel, seeing him tearful and broken by his threat of leaving, thought the decisive moment had arrived, and opening the door of Sagrario"s room he called:
"Come out, child, ask your father"s pardon."
He looked astounded, then he fixed his eyes on Gabriel as though he could not guess who that woman was. What joke had his brother prepared?
With a brutal impulse he tore the woman"s hands from her face, looking at her earnestly; even so he did not recognise her. In the midst of a painful silence he stood a long while looking at her. Little by little, in that face so altered by illness, he began to trace the well-known features. In the tearful eyes devoid of eyelashes something reminded him of the blue eyes of the lost daughter. The discoloured lips, surrounded by deep lines, quivered painfully, murmuring always the same word: