“He was not with the good,” repeated brother Gabriel, in bowing his head.
“But where am I?” again demanded Stein.
“You are,” replied the old woman, “in a convent which is no longer a convent. It is a body without a soul. There remain but the walls, the white cross, and brother Gabriel. The others have taken away all the rest. When there was nothing more to take, some gentlemen whom they call the public credit searched for a good man to guard the convent—that is to say, its carcass. They heard my son spoken of, and we came and established ourselves here, where I live with my son, the only one who would remain. When we entered into the convent, the fathers went away. Some retired to America or rejoined the missions in China; some returned to their families; some demanded their subsistence or work, or had recourse to alms. We have with us a monk, borne down by age and grief, who, seated on the steps of the white cross, weeps sometimes for the absent brethren, sometimes for the convent which they have abandoned. ‘Will not your Reverence come here,’ a child but lately attached to the services of the chapel said to him. ‘Where would you that I go?’ he replied. ‘I will never go away from these walls, where I was, poor and an orphan, received by the good fathers. I know nobody in the world, and know nothing but how to take care of the garden of the convent. Where shall I go? What shall I do? I can live only here.’ ‘Then remain with us.’ ‘Well said, mother,’ replied my son; ‘we are seven seated at the same table; we will be eight, and, as the proverb says, We will eat more, and we will eat less.’ ”
“Thanks to this act of charity,” said Gabriel, “I remain here, I take charge of the garden; but since they have sold the large pump, I do not know how to water a foot of ground; the orange and lemon trees dry up under my feet.”
“Brother Gabriel,” continued the grandma, “will not quit these walls to which he is attached like the ivy; he also says, ‘Very well, there remain but the walls. The barbarians! They have proved this maxim: Destroy the nest, the birds will never come back again.’ ”
“Notwithstanding,” hazarded Stein, “I have heard said there are too many convents in Spain.”
Maria fixed her black sparkling eyes on the German, and said to herself in an undertone:
“Were our first suspicions well founded?”
CHAPTER IV.
THE end of October had been rainy, and November sheltered herself under her thick green mantle.