"You will hardly recognise our Corpus," he said to Gabriel. "Of all that we remember nothing remains but the famous tapestries that are hung outside the Cathedral. The giants are not drawn up before the Puerta del Perdon, and the procession is shorn of its glory."
The Chapel-master also complained bitterly.
"And the mass, Señor Esteban? Just think what a mass for such a solemn festivity! Four instruments from outside the house, and a Rossini mass of the lightest description so as not to cost much. It would have been far better for this to have played the organ alone."
According to an ancient custom, on the vesper before the feast, the band of the Academy of Infantry played in the evening before the Cathedral. All Toledo came to hear the serenade, which was an event in the monotonous life of the town, and from the province of Madrid many strangers came for the bull-fight on the following day.
Mariano, the bell-ringer, invited his friends to listen to the serenade from the Greco-Roman gallery on the principal front. At the hour when the lights were usually extinguished in the Claverias and Don Antolin locked the street door, Gabriel and his friends glided cautiously to the bell-ringer's "habitacion." Sagrario was also persuaded to come by her uncle, who in this way managed to tear her from her machine. She really must enjoy some little amusement; she ought to appear in the world now and then; she was killing herself with all that tiresome work.
They all sat in the gallery. The shoemaker had brought his wife, always with a small baby at her flabby breast. The Tato was talking delightedly to the organ-blower and the verger about the bull-fight on the following day, and Mariano stood by his adored comrade, while his wife, a woman as rough as himself, spoke with Sagrario.
The men were deploring the absence of Don Martin. Probably he had gone down below among the people who filled the square, doubtless dreading that he must be up before daybreak to say mass to the nuns.
The palace of the Ayuntamiento was decorated with strings of light, which were reflected on to the façade of the Cathedral, giving the stones a rosy flush as of fire.
Among the trees walked groups of girls with flowers and white blouses, like the first appearances of spring. The cadets followed them, their hands on the pommels of their swords, walking along with their pinched-in waists and their full pantaloons à la Turc. The archiepiscopal palace remained entirely closed. Above the rosy light in the piazza, spread the beautiful summer sky, clear and deep, spangled with innumerable brilliant stars.
When the music ceased, and the lights began to fade, the inhabitants of the Cathedral felt unwilling to leave their seats. They were very comfortable there, the night was warm, and they, accustomed to the confinement and the silence of the Claverias, felt the joy of freedom, sitting on that balcony with Toledo at their feet and the immensity of space above them.