And he laughed again, looking at Gabriel with paternal pity as though he were a child.
"My remedy!" exclaimed Gabriel, taking no notice of the priest's gesture. "I have no remedy whatever, it is the progress of humanity that alone offers one. All the nations on earth have passed through the same evolutions; first of all they were ruled by the sword, then by faith, and now by science. We ourselves have been ruled by warriors and priests, but now we tarry at the gate of modern life, without the strength or wish to take science by the hand, who is the only guide we could have, hence our sad situation. Science is nowadays in everything—in agriculture, in all manufactures, in arts and crafts, in the culture and well-being of the people; it is even in war. Spain still lives far from the sun of science, at most she knows a pale reflection, cold and feeble, that comes to us from foreign countries. The failure of faith has left us without strength, like those creatures who, having suffered from a severe illness in their youth, remain anaemic for ever, without possible recuperation, condemned to premature old age."
"Bah! Science!" said Silver Stick, turning towards his house; "that is the eternal cry of all the enemies of religion. There is no better science than to love God and His works. Good evening."
"Very good evening, Don Antolin; but remember this, we have not yet done with faith and the sword; sometimes one directs us or the other drives us; but of science, never a word, unless Spain has changed in the last twenty-four hours."
CHAPTER VII
After this evening Gabriel avoided the meetings in the cloister, so as to have no more discussions with Silver Stick. He repented of his audacity, and when he was alone reflected on the danger to which he had exposed himself in expressing his views so freely. He felt terrified at the possibility of being expelled from the Cathedral to roam the world afresh; he reproached himself, throwing in his own teeth his folly in hurling himself against the prejudices of the past. What could he hope to effect by changing the thoughts of these poor people? What weight could the conversion of these few men, stuck like limpets to the stones of the past, have in the emancipation of humanity?
The Cathedral was to Gabriel like a gigantic tumour, which blistered the Spanish epidermis, like scars of its ancient infirmities. It was not a muscle capable of development, but an abscess which bided its time either to be extirpated, or to disappear of itself through the working of the germs it contained; he had chosen this ruin as his refuge and he ought to be silent, to be prudent so that his ingratitude should not be flung in his face.
Moreover, his brother Esteban, breaking the cold reserve into which he had retired since the arrival of his daughter, counselled prudence.
"His mind seems possessed by the demon, Esteban," said the priest, "and he explains his views with the most perfect calmness in this holy house, as though he were in one of those infernal clubs which exist in foreign countries. Where on earth has your brother been to learn such things? Never have I heard such frightful heresies. Tell him that I shall forget it all as I have known him since his childhood, and that I remember he was the pride of our seminary, but more especially because he is ill, and it would be inhuman to drive him out of the Cathedral; but he must not repeat this scandal. Silence! Let him keep all those atrocities in his own head, if it so pleases him to lose his soul; but in this holy house, and especially before its staff, not a word. Do you understand? not a word. The next thing will be that he will hold meetings in the Holy Metropolitan Church. Besides, your brother must remember that, after all, at this moment, he is eating the bread of the Church, as he lives on you, and is supported by you, and it is not right to speak in this way of the most excellent work of God, and try to point out all its defects."
This last consideration weighed the most with Gabriel, and it wounded his dignity. Don Antolin said rightly, he was no more than a parasite of the Cathedral, and having taken refuge in her lap, he owed her gratitude and silence. He would keep silence. Had he not decided when he took refuge there to live as one dead? He would live like an animated corpse, which in some religious orders is the supreme of human perfection. He would think like everyone else, or rather, he would try not to think at all, but would simply vegetate there till his last hour came, like the plants in the garden or the fungus on the buttresses of the cloister.