"It is true the Church is defunct; what we fight are only its remains. The vulgar believe it still lives because they can see and touch it, forgetting that a religion counts centuries in its life as minutes, and that generation after generation pass between its death and burial. Centuries before the birth of Jesus Paganism had fallen. The Athenian poets mocked the gods of Olympus on the stage, and the philosophers despised it. All the same Christianity required many years of propaganda and the political support of the Caesars to bring it to an end, and even then it was not done with, for dogmas are like men who leave behind something of themselves in the family who succeed them. Religions do not disappear suddenly through a trapdoor; they are extinguished slowly, leaving some of their beliefs and their ceremonies to the religions that follow them. We have been born in one of those times of transition, we are present at the death of a whole world of beliefs. How long will the agony last? Who knows? Two centuries? Possibly less may be wanted to crystallise in humanity a fresh proof of its uncertainty and of its fear of the great mystery of nature, but death is certain, inevitable. But what religion has been eternal? The symptoms of dissolution are visible everywhere. Where is that faith that drove those warlike multitudes to the crusades? Where is that fervour which continued building cathedrals for a couple of hundred years with angelic patience to shelter a host under a mountain of stone? Who scourges themselves to-day, or tortures their flesh, or lives in the desert musing continually on death and hell? Three centuries of intolerance and of excessive clerical severity have made our nation the most indifferent to all religious matters. The ceremonies of worship are followed by routine, because they appeal to the imagination, but no one takes the trouble to understand the foundations of the beliefs they profess; they live as they please, certain that in their last hours it is sufficient to save their souls, to die surrounded by priests with a crucifix in their hands. In former days the pressure from clergy, friars, and inquisitors was so great that the machine of faith burst into a thousand pieces, and there is no one now who can fit the pieces together, which require the co-operation of all. And that was a piece of good luck, friend Don Martin; a century more of religious intolerance and we should have been like those Mussulmen in Africa, who live in barbarism on account of their excessive bigotry, after having been the civilising Arabs of Cordoba and Granada."
"Do you know," said the young curate, "why Catholicism has held up its appearances of power? It is because from ancient times, in all Latin countries, it has possessed itself of every avenue through which human life must pass."
"It is true, no religion has been so cautious as ours, or has ambushed itself better to entrap men. None has chosen with such certainty in the time of power the positions it can hold strongly in its decadence. It is impossible to move without stumbling against her. She knows of old that man as long as he is healthy, in the plenitude of his vital strength, is by instinct irreligious. When he lives comfortable the so-called eternal life concerns him very little. He only believes in God and fears Him in the hour of supreme cowardice, when death opens before him the bottomless pit of nothingness, and his pride as a rational animal revolts against the complete extinction of his being. He wishes his soul to be immortal, and so he accepts the religious phantasies of heaven and hell. The Church, fearing the irreligiousness of health, has occupied, as you say, all the avenues of life, so that no man shall accustom himself to live without her, appealing solely to her in the hour of death. The dead provide much money, they are her best asset; but she wishes equally to reign over the living. Nothing escapes her despotism and her spying. She insinuates herself into all human concerns from the greatest to the most insignificant, she interferes in both public and private life; she baptizes the child when it comes into the world, accompanies the child to school, monopolises love, declaring it shameful and abominable if it does not submit to her benediction, and divides the earth into two categories—the consecrated, for those who die in her bosom, and the dunghill in the open air for the heretic. The Church interferes in dress, laying down what is honest and Christian wear and what is scandalous frivolity. She interferes in the most intimate relations of domestic life, and even penetrates into the kitchen, turning Catholicism into a culinary art, ruling what ought to be eaten, what ought or ought not to be mixed, and anathematizing certain foods, which, being good enough the rest of the year, become the most horrible sacrilege if partaken on certain days. She accompanies a man from his birth, and does not leave him even after he is laid in the tomb; she keeps him chained by his soul, making it wander through space, passing from one place to another, ascending the pathway to heaven, according to the sacrifices imposed on themselves by his successors for the benefit of the Church. A greater or more complete despotism no tyrant could possibly imagine."
It was mid-day. The bell-ringer had disappeared; suddenly the rattle of chains and pulleys was heard and a dull thunder made the tower tremble; all the stones and metal and even the surrounding ether vibrated. The big "Gorda" had just rung, deafening the bystanders. A few moments afterwards, from the front of the Alcazar, came the sound of martial music, trumpets, and drums.
"Let us go," said Gabriel. "Really, Mariano might have warned us and spared us this surprise."
And he added, smiling ironically:
"It is always the same; it is the parasites who shine the most and make the most noise; they make up in noise what they lack in utility."
The festival of Corpus drew near without anything occurring to ruffle the quiet life of the Cathedral. Sometimes in the upper cloister they spoke of His Eminence's health. His serious quarrels with the Chapter had obliged him to keep his bed, and he had just had an attack which made them fear for his life.
"It is his heart," said the Tato—who was usually very well informed about things in the palace—"Doña Visita is weeping like a Magdalen and cursing the canons, seeing Don Sebastian so ill."
As Wooden Staff sat down to table with his family he began to speak of the decadence of the feast of Corpus, which had been so famous in Toledo in former times. In his desire to complain he forgot the bitter silence he had imposed on himself in his daughter's presence.