"He will be here all the afternoon," says the sacristan, "and nothing can be shown; but if you will come back to-morrow I will arrange for you to see even Our Lady's robes and gems."
Come back! I felt myself graying to a shadow already. Of course I longed to see again that marvellous woodwork of the choir stalls, with all the conquest of Granada carved amid columns of jasper and under alabaster canopies, but I was smothered in a multitude of ghosts. They crowded from every side,—nuns, monks, soldiers, tyrants, magnificent archbishops, the martyred Leocadia, passionate Roderick, weeping Florinda, grim Count Julian, "my Cid," Pedro the Cruel, those five thousand Christian nobles and burghers of Toledo, slain, one by one, at the treacherous feast of Abderrahman, those hordes of flaming Jews writhing amid the Inquisition fagots. I had kept my Corpus. I had seen the greatest of all autos sacramentales, Calderon's masterpiece, "Life is a Dream."
"On a single one of the Virgin's gold-wrought mantles," coaxed the sacristan, "are eighty-five thousand large pearls and as many sapphires, amethysts, and diamonds. I will arrange for you to see everything, when Our Lord is gone away."
But no. I am a little particular about treasures. Since Toledo has lost the emerald table of King Solomon and that wondrous copy of the Psalms written upon gold leaf in a fluid made of melted rubies, I will not trouble the seven canons to unlock the seven doors of the cathedral sacristy. Let the Madonna enjoy her wealth alone. I have pesetas enough for my ticket to Madrid.
XIX
THE TERCENTENARY OF VELÁZQUEZ
"It is a sombre and a weeping sky
That lowers above thee now, unhappy Spain;
Thy 'scutcheon proud is dashed with dimming rain;