Then one day she may have paid her first visit to Jerusalem—perhaps a lawsuit over a boundary taking her there, or the need to present her orphaned grandchild in the Temple—and have seen this same young man led through the streets, bound with cords, while the populace shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” and have returned to her remote little farm with an ache in her heart.
And, as the years would go by, from the tales of wayfarers, from rumours blown from afar, she might come to believe that somehow or other the young man had died for the poor—for her; had died and risen again. And gradually, as with the years his legend grew, she would come to look upon him as a fairy-being, akin to the old sanctities of the countryside, swelling her grapes, plumping her olives, and keeping away locusts and blight. But, towards the end of her life, business may have taken her again to Nazareth, where, hearing that the young man’s mother was still alive, something may have compelled her to go and visit her. And in the little room behind the carpenter’s shop, where the other sons and grandsons were planing and sawing, and singing to ancient melodies of the desert songs of plenty and vengeance and the Messiah, the two old women would talk together in hushed tones of Him who so many years ago had been crucified and buried. And through the mother’s anecdotes of His childhood and tearful encomiums, “He was ever a good kind son to me,”—the fairy-being would once more become human and ponderable—the gentlest young man that had ever crossed her path.
So far, the Doña had not been very successful in bringing Anna and Jasper to their Lord.
For instance, when she had told them the story of Christ among the doctors, Anna had merely remarked coldly and reprovingly, “He must have been a very goody-goody, grown-uppish sort of boy.”
This particular evening the Doña had decided to consecrate to an exegesis of the doctrine of Transsubstantiation.
When the Doña said that at a certain point of the mass the bread turned to the actual flesh and blood and bones of Jesus, Anna’s face assumed an expression of dogged scepticism, and having decided that she must ask Teresa about it, continued her own thoughts: Mamselle, who gave her French lessons in Cambridge, had fired her imagination with accounts of the bouktis they used to have in the Surbiton family where she was once governess—“vraiment, c’était passionant; je me demande pourquoi Dr. Sinclair n’organise pas des bouktis à Trinité—ça serait très amusant pour les jeunes gens....” It was a good idea! All the people with buried names of books, and having to guess. Oh, yes!... one could go with a lot of little lambs’ tails sewed on one’s frock ... yes, but how was one going to get in the “of Shakespeare”.... Of course ... what a goose she was not to have realised it before ... bouktis was Mamselle’s way of saying “book-teas” ... that’s what the parties were called—“book-teas.”
Thus Anna; as to Jasper—if one could reduce the instantaneous and fantastic picture produced on his mind to a definite consecutive statement, it would read something like this: By the powerful spells of a clergyman, who was also a magician, pieces of bread were turned into tiny men—long-robed, bearded, and wearing golden straw hats of which nothing but the brim could be seen from in front. Then the clergyman distributed to every one at the party one of the tiny men, to be their very own. They each, forthwith, swallowed their tiny man, and he made himself a little nest in their stomachs, whence he could be summoned to be played with whenever they liked.
He began jumping up and down, his body trembling like that of an excited terrier.
“Oh, I want, I want, I want some of that bread,” he cried. “Oh, when can I have it, Doña? Oh, I can’t wait!”