The Shadow of the Cathedral

by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

When they met in the early mornings in the cloister the conversation between the two friends generally ran on the same lines.

"This evening, eh?" the Chapel-master would say mysteriously. "I have some fresh music, we shall enjoy something new that I have been sent to-day, and besides, I wrote a little thing last night."

The anarchist nodded affirmatively, quite ready to serve as entertainment for this pariah of art, who saw in him his only audience, and who took so much kindly trouble to interest him.

While the services lasted Gabriel would walk alone in the cloisters; all the men were in the Cathedral, except the shoemaker, who was mending the giants. Tired of the chattering of the women who stood at the doors of the Claverias, he would go up to the dwelling of the bell-ringer, his old companion in arms, or he would go down into the garden by the remarkable staircase del Tenorio when it was open, or by the archbishop's archway crossing the street.

He delighted in passing an hour under the trees; he found in the garden as many memories of his family as in the "habitacion" upstairs. Besides, he was tired of always finding his walks bounded by stone walls, which reminded him of his prison, and he wanted the movement of the vegetation caressed by the breeze to foster the illusion that he was living in complete liberty in the open country.

In the arbour, where he had formerly so often seen his father, infirm and crippled with age, directing his eldest son, who received all his orders impassively, he would now meet his Aunt Tomasa, knitting her stockings, and watching with vigilant eyes the work of a boy whom she had taken into her service.

Gabriel's aunt was by far the most important person in the Claverias; her word was worth quite as much as Don Antolin's, the Silver Stick was afraid of her, bending before the powerful protection that they all guessed stood behind the poor old woman. In the days when her father, Gabriel's maternal grandfather, was sacristan in the Cathedral the functions of acolyte were exercised by a small boy, nephew of one of the beneficiaries of the Cathedral, who ended by paying for his education in the seminary. This little acolyte of half a century before was now a prince of the church, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo. Old Tomasa and he had known each other as children, fighting over trifles in the upper cloister, or playing tricks on the beggars who sat at the Puerta del Mollete. The imposing Don Sebastian, whose look alone made the Chapter and all the clergy in the diocese tremble, became happy, fraternal and confidential, when now and then in the evenings he saw Tomasa. She was the only living reminder of his childhood in the Cathedral. The old woman would kiss his ring with great reverence, but very soon she would lapse into talking to him as one of her own family, often very nearly speaking to him in the second person. The cardinal, always surrounded by fear and adulation, often felt the necessity of the old woman's careless and frank conversation. The people belonging to the Cathedral declared that the Señora Tomasa was the only person who dared to tell the cardinal home-truths face to face, and the neighbours in the Claverias felt their pride flattered when they saw the prince of the church sweeping down the stone steps in his brilliant scarlet robes to sit in the arbour and gossip for a good hour with the old woman, while his attendants remained respectfully standing at the gate of the iron railings.

Tomasa was not puffed up with this honour; to her this ecclesiastical prince was only the friend of her childhood, who had had a certain amount of good luck; and in the end, he was only Don Sebastian, without going any further into ceremonies and formulas of respect. But her family knew how to take advantage of this friendship, especially her son-in-law, "Virgin's Blue," a hypocrite, as the old woman declared, who would make money out of the very cobwebs of the Cathedral; an insatiable locust who, profiting by the friendship of the cardinal and his mother-in-law, went on continually obtaining fresh privileges, without the priests and sacristans daring to make the slightest protest, seeing him so well protected.

Gabriel much enjoyed his aunt's talk. She was the only person born in the cloister who seemed to have freed herself from the soporific influence of the church. She loved the Cathedral, as being her ancient roof-tree, but she did not retain much respect for the saints in the chapels, nor for the human dignitaries who sat in the choir. She laughed with the happiness of a healthy and placid old woman, her seventy years being, as she said, quite free from any evil done to her neighbour. Her language was free and easy, like that of a woman who has seen much, and does not believe in human majesty or irreproachable virtues; but the bed-rock of her character was its tolerance, her compassion for all faults, but she Was indignant with those who attempted to hide them.

"They are all men, Gabriel," she would say to her nephew, speaking of the clergy of the Cathedral. "Don Sebastian is only a man; all sinners who have much to answer for before God. They cannot be anything else, and so I forgive them. But believe me, nephew, I often feel inclined to laugh when I see the people kneeling before them. I believe in the Virgin of the Sagrario, and a little in God; but in these gentlemen! If you only knew them as I do! But, when all is said and done, we must all live, and the evil is not in having faults, but in attempting to hide them; playing a farce with the shamelessness of my son-in-law who, here as you see him, is as proud as a castle, beats his breast, kisses the ground like the Beatas,[1] and yet he is anxious for my death, thinking I have something laid away in my chest; he filches what he can from the Virgin's poor-box, steals the wax tapers, and plays tricks with what is paid for masses, and yet he would be in the street if it were not for me, who always think of my poor sick daughter and my poor little grandchildren."