All in vain. The penitent did the honours of the table like a prince in disguise, and never failed to bow and answer, "Yes, señor," or "No, señor," to everything Carlos said. But he seemed either unable or unwilling to do more.
As the day wore on, this silence grew oppressive to Carlos; and he marvelled increasingly at his companion's want of ordinary interest in him, or curiosity about him. Until at length a probable solution of the mystery dawned upon his mind. As he considered the penitent an agent of the monks deputed to convert him, very likely the penitent, on his side, regarded him in the light of a spy commissioned to watch his proceedings.
But this, if it was true at all, was only a small part of the truth. Carlos failed to take into account the terrible effect of long years of solitude, crushing down all the faculties of the mind and heart. It is told of some monastery, where the rules were so severe that the brethren were only allowed to converse with each other during one hour in the week, that they usually sat for that hour in perfect silence: they had nothing to say. So it was with the penitent of the Dominican convent. He had nothing to say, nothing to ask; curiosity and interest were dead within him--dead long ago, of absolute starvation.
Yet Carlos could not help observing him with a strange kind of fascination. His face was too still, too coldly calm, like a white marble statue; and yet it was a noble face. It was, although not a thoughtful face, the face of a thoughtful man asleep. It did not lack expressiveness, though it lacked expression. Moreover, there was in it a look that awakened dim, undefined memories--shadowy things, that fled away like ghosts whenever he tried to grasp them, yet persistently rose again, and mingled with all his thoughts.
He told himself many times that he had never seen the man before. Was it, then, an accidental likeness to some familiar face that so fixed and haunted him? Certainly there was something which belonged to his past, and which, even while it perplexed and baffled, strangely soothed and pleased him.
At each of the canonical hours (which were announced to them by the tolling of the convent bells), the penitent did not fail to kneel before the crucifix, and, with the aid of a book and a rosary, to read or repeat long Latin prayers, in a half audible voice. He retired to rest early, leaving his fellow-prisoner supremely happy in the enjoyment of his lamp and his Book of Hours. For it was two years since the eyes of the once enthusiastic young scholar had rested on a printed page, or since the kindly gleam of lamp or fire had cheered his solitude. The privilege of refreshing his memory with the passages of Scripture contained in the Romish book of devotion now appeared an unspeakable boon to him. And although, accustomed as he was to a life of unbroken monotony, the varied impressions of the day had produced extreme weariness of mind and body, it was near midnight before he could prevail upon himself to close the volume, and lie down to rest on the comfortable pallet prepared for him.
He was just falling asleep, when the midnight bell tolled out heavily. He saw his companion rise, throw his mantle over his shoulders, and betake himself to his devotions. How long these lasted he could not tell, for the stately kneeling figure soon mingled with his dreams--strange dreams of Juan as a penitent, dressed in a sanbenito, and with white hair and an old man's face, kneeling devoutly before the altar in the church at Nuera, but reciting one of the songs of the Cid instead of De Profundis.
XLI.
More about the Penitent.
"Ay, thus thy mother looked,
With such a sad, yet half-triumphant smile.
All radiant with deep meaning."--Hemans