And Sagrario, after many denials, finally admitted her discomfort:
"My bones ache; directly I get to bed the pain begins and I feel as though my limbs were being torn asunder. And you, how are you? All night I heard you cough, and I thought you were suffocating."
And the two invalids stricken by life forgot their own aches and pains to sympathise with those of the other, establishing between their hearts a current of loving pity, attracted to each other not by the difference of sex, but by the fraternal sympathy aroused by each other's misfortunes.
Very often Sagrario would try to send her uncle away; it pained her to see him sitting close by her, doing nothing, coughing painfully, fixing his eyes upon her as though she were an object of adoration.
"Get up from here," the girl would say gaily—"it makes me nervous seeing you so very quiet keeping me company when what you want is life and movement. Go to your friends; they are expecting you in the bell-ringer's tower. They have been talking about me, thinking it is I who keep you in the house. Go out to walk, uncle! Go and speak of those things that stir you so much, and that those poor people listen to open-mouthed. Be careful as you go up the stairs; go slowly and stop often, so that the demon of the cough, may not get hold of you."
Gabriel spent the later hours of the morning in the bell-ringer's "habitacion." The walls of ancient whitewash were adorned by faded and yellow engravings, representing episodes in the Carlist war, remembrances of the mountain campaign which for long years had been the pride of Mariano, but of which now he never spoke.
Here Gabriel met all his admirers. Even the shoemaker worked at night in order not to deprive himself of this meeting. Don Martin, the curate, also came up, concealing himself carefully so that Silver Stick should not see him. It was a small community grouping itself round the sick apostle, with all the zeal inspired by the unknown.
Gabriel answered all these men's questions, that so often betrayed the simplicity of their minds. When a fit of coughing seized him, they all surrounded him with concern written on their faces. They would have wished even at the cost of their own lives to restore him to health. Luna, carried away by his enthusiasm, ended by narrating to them the story of his life and sufferings, and so the prestige of martyrdom came to increase the ardour of these people. The narrowed minds of these sedentary men, living tranquil and safe in the Cathedral, made them admire the adventures and torments of this fighter; for them he was a martyr to this new religion of the humble and oppressed, and besides, their innocence converted him into a victim of that social injustice which they daily hated more.
For them there was no other truth but Gabriel's words; the bell-ringer, although the roughest and most silent among them, was the most advanced in his conversion. His admiration for Gabriel which dated from their childhood, his dog-like fidelity, carried him on with leaps and bounds, making him accept at once even the most distant ideals.
"I am whatever you are, Gabriel," he said firmly. "Are you not an anarchist? I will be one also—indeed, I think I have always been one. Do you not preach that the poor should live and the rich should work; that everyone should possess what he earns, and that we should all help one another? Well, this is just what I thought when we wandered over the country with our guns and our scarf. And as far as religion is concerned, which formerly nearly drove us mad, I feel perfectly indifferent. I am convinced on hearing you that it is a sort of fable invented by clever people in order that we, the poor and unfortunate, should submit to the miseries of this world hoping for heaven; it is not badly imagined, for in the end those who die and do not find heaven will not return to complain."