The Shadow of the Cathedral

rning in search of Gabriel. Silver Stick smiled

im idle, walking about the cloister; it was the want of

ake themselves understood when they question me; you will understand them, as you know French and English, and, your brother says, many other languages. The Cathedral would be a gainer, as it would s

screw out of the funds of the Obreria; if just at first nothing could be managed, as the revenue

said and done he was a guest of the Cathedral and owed it something. And from that afterno

often felt very much surprised at the shabbiness of their clothing; according to his ideas only the great ones of the earth could give themselves the pleasure of travelling, and he opened wide his incredulo

work, custodias and viriles[1] of gold, enormous gilt dishes, embossed with mythological subjects reviving the joy of paganism in that sordid and dusty corner of the Christian Church, and precious stones spread their varied colours over pectorals, mitres and mantles for the Virgin. There were diamonds so immense as to make one doubt their being genuine, emeralds the size of pebbles, amethysts, topaz, and pearls-very many pearls, strewn by the hundreds and thousands on the Virgin's

box with double glass in w

lliancy in her hands, like jewels that fall into the power of usurers. The diamond becomes dulled

s-were shown in gold or silver shrines. The gross and credulous piety of former days displayed itself in the full tide of unbelief, so that even Don Antolin, so uncompromising when he spoke of the glories of his Cathedral, lowered his voi

and again with imperturbable gravity, while the canons who escorted the batc

Englishman interrup

st all these things a f

Mich

ally seriously, "but you will probably find it in s

he Toledan archbishops hanging on the wall, with their mitres and golden croziers. Gabriel called their attention to the picture of Don

eople could examine the wonderful embroidery. A whole world of patterns appeared with every possible brilliancy of colour on a few inches of stuff. The astonishing art of the ancient embroiderers made the silk a series of vivid pictures; the collar and the narrow stripes on the front of a cape were large enough to reproduce all the scenes of the biblical creation and the passion of Jesus. Brocade and silk unrolled the magnificence of their textures. One cape was a garden of flame-coloured carnations, another was a bed of roses and o

of revenue, employed for its embellishment armies of embroiderers, acquiring the richest textures of Valencia and Seville, reproducing in gold and colours all the epi

with rude pride when there was nothing else to be shown. Returning to the quiet of the upper cloister after the daily exhibition of the Treasury, Gabriel thought the poverty of the Claverias even more revolting and intolerable. The shoemaker seemed sadder and yellower in the rank atmosphere of his den, bending over his bench hammering the soles, his wife more feeble and ill, the miserable slave of maternity, weakened by hunger, and offering to her little son as his only hope of food those flaccid breasts in which there was nothing left but a drop of blood. The little child was dying! Sagrario, who had left

n the neighbours who had gathered round the invalid each diagnosed some particular ailment, and recommended every imaginable sort of household remedy, from decoct

substantial for its weakness, and threw it up as soon as swallowed. The Aunt Tomasa, with her energetic and enterprising character, brought a woman from outside the Cathedral to nourish the child, but after two days, and before the effects bec

came in and out of the shoemaker's house, and even

e? Just the same? It

eat charity of not speaking to him about the pe

was a shame that that shoemaker should be allowed to live in the Claverias with all that flock of wretched and scurvy children; one would die every month; all sorts of illness

-in-law wa

d, and if things were as they should be, all the poor ought to live in the Cathedral. Instead of saying such

ould not have children. There he was himself with only one daughter-he did not think he h

oemaker's child to the