VII
Senhor Jorge's lamps were not as bright as full moons. Their smoky flames lit up the vast barn so feebly that candles had to be set at the elbows of the knitters and stitchers and spinners. The spattering of the rain against the dusty windows made a dreariful sound.
There were games that could be played in a barn every bit as gay as the games of the open air. But the merry-makers had lost their good spirits, and nobody gave a lead towards recovering them. One by one the maids and youths sat down on full sacks or empty barrels, or squatted on the ground. When all were seated Donna Perpetua very politely begged José to tune his mandolin and to sing a fado, or love-song.
For the sake of the young people, Antonio felt glad. More than once he had heard José singing folk-songs which would have brought smiles to the faces of the most austere; and he took it for granted that José would break out with one of these rollicking lays. José, however, succumbed to the surrounding depression. Having tuned his mandolin, which was unusually large and sonorous, he began playing a doleful prelude.
Had his mind been free to enjoy it, Antonio would have found the music brimful of charm. The descending minor scale was occasionally, but not always, used in ascending passages, and the monk could not doubt that José had received some tradition of tonality which urban ears would have rejected with ignorant scorn. As José played on, it seemed that he changed the scale more often than the key. At last he subsided into a more familiar gamut and began to sing in slow and mournful tones:
"O! fountain weeping softly,
Thou canst not weep for ever:
But the full fountains of my tears
Shall be congealed never.
"O! weep, my eyes, and weep, my heart,
Bereaved and forsaken;
Weep as the holy Virgin wept
The night her Son was taken.
"Alas! the sadness of my life.
Alas! my life of sadness;
Would I had wings to fly with thee,
O Swallow, Bird of Gladness!
"O Eagle! flying up so high,
Upon thy strong wings fleet me;
O Eagle! lift me to that sky
Where she prepares to greet me."