The Shadow of the Cathedral

ly, putting their ha

od's will! W

old woman went one day to the Archbishop's palace. Don Sebastian was engage

other, "but each one lives for himself, and his neighbour may manage as he can. No one

llected in the cloister profited most by the baby's illness; it was growing daily weake

side could be heard the mother's wailings, strident, interminable, like the bellowi

she called, 'see, what is the matter with the child, it is moving its mouth and making grimaces?' I ran up quickly, its face was quite dusky-as if i

semblance between his son and those

r looked gloom

hing, is it true tha

s scandalous impetuo

ancy a child dying of hunger in this house, where money runs l

in the shoemaker's house, all the women surrounded the mother. Despair had rendered that sick and feeble woman furious

o-o-o-n! m

ome one responsible for her misfortune, and she fixed on those highest in the cloister. Don Antolin had not helped her

h his usurer's snares. Never a farthing did he give for my son. And that Mariquita is just the sam

hey will hear you," begged

acity of the uncle, and the magnificent airs that ugly woman gave herself! Because they were poor they were not going to spend

They were confused and garbled ideas, that very few could understand, but they cherished them like fresh pure air reviving their minds. They sounded in their ears like a pleasant echo from the outside world. It wa

ardily executed, and he had a clear perception that they were laughing behind his back as he walked through the cloister, and making threatening gestures. One day his legs trembled beneath him and his eyes were dimmed, hearing how the Perrero replied to one of his reprimands, having returned

r gratuitously in her household duties. They replied insolently that those who wanted servants must pay for them. Wha

ge or weeping, whenever she stationed herself at her door. All the women of the Claverias wished

rs, "always so dressed up, the ugly jade. She decks herself

on the roofs, there was generally a voice singing the an

los curas y

fruto siempre e

s-like laurels-never have any fru

n a perpetual rage, grew furious listening to him and very nearly thrashed him. Why did he come to him with such tales? For what reason had he been given any authority? Was there nothing left of a man beneath his cassock? He who was wanting in

nishing the weakest, whom he considered as the origin of all these scandals. The shoemaker should be expelled from the Claverias, as he was there through no other right but tha

her, terrified by the silent unanimity with

y read "Remember the knife"; but what terrified Don Antolin more than anything was the silen

eban, protested in his own way,

wrong, very wrong, for after all he is very poor, and his wife was born

very side, put off his energetic resolutions till the following day

own affair; he could punish or expel any one he thought fit without fear of anybody. But Don Antolin, dreading the responsibility that might accrue from energetic action, ended by delivering

niece, and some day I shall turn half the people of the Claverias out into the street, as I hold authority from His Eminence for everything. Ay

had sought calm and forgetfulness in that refuge, and the spirit of rebellion had followed him even into this concealment. He recalled his thoughts on the first day, when he was alone in the silent cloister; he wished to be ano

g it, helping it to leap all barriers and obstacles, without being in the least aware of it. He was the same, but instead of spreading death, he spread tumultuous and rebellious life. The protest of the lower orders that had been surging throughout the world, for mor

tion. They were ashamed of the old errors that they had worshipped, and this made the

everything, justifying everything, the only requirement being its novelty, and cas

ered his eyes before them, smilingly anxious to make himself agreeable. This they owed to the master, for he was now the true ruler of the upper cloister. Don

, without now being intimidated by the religious atmosphere. They sat with the look of lords, surrounding their master, while in the opposite gallery walked Silver Stick like a black phant

alk-what did it matter? It was only a little ebullition of pride in those people, nothing more. All words and wind in the head. Meanwhile they had better not ask for any more money! In exc

education of the Toledan sacristans, a praise Don Antoli

d, though in a smaller degree, by the atmosphere of proselytism and blind enthusiasm, as in the days of his martyrdom. He had wished to efface himself and to disappear on entering the Cathedral, but fate mocked him

rother, the Wooden Staff, without understanding the full

having been ignorant all their lives, it is dangerous to turn such men into sages at one blow. It is as if I, being accustomed to the homely stew, we

on of his disciples and his own ardour as propagandist. It was a great delight to him to see the wonder in those

he happiness of men, after a revolutionary crisis which would change all the organi

shipwrecked and was moribund, and only science could enforce it in the future. They must stop on the way they were going, as humanity was marching on the road to perdition, therefore it was necessary to return to the point of departure. The first man who had cultivated a portion of the earth and garnered the fruits of his toil, thought it was his for ever, and left it to his sons as their property; they engaged other men to cultivate it for them-so these men became robbers, appropriators of the universal heritage. It was the same with those who possessed themselves of the invention of human genius, machines, etc., for the benefit of a small majority, subjecting the rest of mankind to the law of hunger. No, everything was for everyone. The earth belonged to all human beings without exception, like the sun and the air; its products ought to be divided between everyone with due regard to their necessities. It was shameful that man, who only appeared for an instant on this planet-a minute, a second, for his life was no more than this in the life of immensity-should s

profoundly into their minds; it was the saying that most cruelly touc

when everything was for everyone, when man should have recognised his right to happiness, without laws or compulsion to force hi

ed by the body and its imperious requirements; his conscience would be inspired with the clear understanding of solidarity with his fellows and the certainty that

penalties and divine punishment, as such men do not believe in these inventions of the past. It is from that respect to his fellows which is felt by every elevated mind, from the consideration that all violence should be avoided, for if everyone gave themselves over to it, all social life must disa

uld be completed, after that it would be possible and easy to change the basis of society; he had a blind faith in the future. Man must progress in the same way as communities; these reckoned their evolutions by centuries, but man by millions of years. How could a man of to-day be compared to the

his ancestors, dominating all nature. From the men of to-day, in whom the passions of their former animalism are finding their equilibrium with the gradual unfolding of the mind, will arise that supe

rks of our origin. One could not help laughing at the God of the Jews, who had modelled a man from clay, like a sculptor. Unlucky artist! Science pointed out much carelessness and bungling in His work, without being able to justify such mistakes. The skin of our bodies did not serve us as a covering like the fur of an animal. How could we then believe it? Why were nipples given to huma

consistencies and incongruities found in the h

men who have slowly evolved and maintained on the earth the existence of our species, exposed thousands of times to annihilation. The day on which our ancestors cared for the sick and wounded, instead of abandoning them as all animals had previously done; on which the first seed was planted, the first arrow shot, brought nature face to face with the greatest of her revolutions. Only one in the future will be able to equal it; if man in remote times was able to free his body, now he requires the great revolution to free his mind. The races who go furthest in their intellectual development will be the ultimate survivors; they will be masters of the earth, destroying all others. The least wise in those days will probably be fa

hich is afterwards put out of its reach. The sacrifices, the slow work for the future, struck no chord in their minds. From Gabriel's explanations they only drew the fact that they were unhappy, but that they had the same right to happiness and comfort as those privileged few whom they had formerly respected in their ignorance. As a certain portion of hum

rtin was the only one who followed him in his visionary excursions into the future. The bell-ringer, the organ-blower, the shoemaker and the Tato now went up nightly to the bell-ringer's house, withou

ad died of hunger, and spoke of the misery of his offspring, so numerous as to render his work useless. The organ-blower spoke of his miserable old age, the six reals daily during his life, without any hope of earning more. The Tato, i

s of no use to anybody-amassed f

s hid themselves daily more carefully in their isolation in the to

had alienated his disciples, cutting short in this way his dangerous conversations so as to

Cathedral? The older watchman, the one who was a civil guard, is tired of it, and is going home to his own village. It appears that since his dog died he has taken a dislike to the duties. The other watchman is very poorly and wants a companion. Will you undertake it? If it were winter I should not say anything about it, as you cough too

uld only undertake the watchman's duties during the summer; besides, two pesetas a day were even more than Woode

the energy which prompted him to undertake any s

were alone in the four-sided gallery. The lighted windows of the Chapel-master's little room threw a square of red on the opposite roofs. They could hear the harmonium playing slowly and sadly,

reshness was falling from above which seems to revive drooping spirits and magnify old remembrances. Th

rough the world. He did not know which were the most painful, his martyrdom in the dungeons of the gloomy castle, or his days of despair in the streets of crowded cities, seeing food and gold through the glass windows of the shops while his head was swimmi

he Englishwoman as

unity of thought than by carnal attraction. I loved her when I first saw her. I hardly know if it was love that we felt; poets h

n whom no affinity existed could meet through false laws of life in perpetual contact, but they could not mix or merge into one another. This happened more often than not between the individuals of different sexes who peopled the earth; a passing sentimentality could exist, or carnal caprice, but s

hich she was born and from bad and insufficient food, with a wretched body, all feminine graces paralysed in their development by the rough work done in her childhood. Her lips, that great ladies paint red, were violet; the only beauty of her face lay in her eyes, those windows of sorrow, made

our makes her lose all her freshness and strength, and maternity in the midst of poverty absorbs even the marrow in her bones. When her daily work is ended and she returns home, she has to sweep and wash, and shrivel herself to a mum

e great towns, running the gauntlet of watchful police, carrying on her arm that old bonnet-box full of pamphlets that might have sent her to prison. She was the "miss" animated by evangelical propaganda, who travels over the globe distributing Bibles with a cold smile, fearless alike of the mockery of civilisation, or the brutality of

r, her skin of a waxen transparency and her eyes immensely enlarged. He knew a little about everything, and he could not conceal from himself the gravity of her illness. She waited quietly for death. "Bring me some roses," she said, smiling to Gabriel, as if in the last moment of her

lecture at the school of anatomy; she fell into the common grave like those soldiers whose heroism remains in

y his recital, "I cannot do what she did. I a

th; I knew it from the first, and for a long while I have been searching my feeling

gesture of surprise, dr

shapeless rags after having passed through the mills of an absurd society. For this reason I love you, because you are my equal in misfortune; elective affinity unites us. Poor Lucy was the work-girl enfeebled by sweating, weakened from her birth by poverty. You were the girl of the people drawn from her home by the attraction of the well-being of the privileged; seduced, not by love, but by the caprices of the happy; the girl o

s, in the upper storey of the Claverias, the Chapel-master played his harmonium. Gabriel knew the music: it was Beetho

artifices of civilisation. I guessed day by day, by your gentle glance and the attention with which you listened to me, your gratitude for the little I was able to do for you. I remembered the dark period of your life, your slavery to the flesh; and finding me always gentle with you, protecting you from your father's anger, your gratitude has grown and grown, till to-day you love me, Sagrario. You yourself have not

dare to look at Luna. He reassured her gently: she must call him Gab

ss, for I should weep at the remembrance of my lost youth. And then my story-my terrible story. How could I imagine that you-or, I should say, that thou, wouldst read my thoughts so clearly? See how I tremble; the shock has not yet ceased, the surprise of finding my secret dis

looking into the darkness of the murmuring garden. From abov

h were failing, and as if terrified at so much

y only for you, to have the beauty and charm of a great lady to soften the rest of your life. But my gratitude can offer you littl

my feelings. I am like a drunkard or a gambler, who, obsessed by their passion, feel nothing before a woman. A studious man, buried in his books, feels very little the calls of sex. My passion is pity for the disinherited, and hatred of injustice and inequality. It has so entirely absorbed me, enslaving all my faculties, that I have never had time to think of love. The female does not attract me, but I worship a woman when I

ant on Gabr

" she sighed; "wha

ed, or the youthful body loses its charms, they are thrown on one side and replaced. The market is abundant; I love you for your misfortunes. Had I seen you young and beautiful as in former times, I should not have felt the slightest attraction. Beauty is a bar to sentiment. The Sagrario of former times, with her dream

d on Gabriel's shoulder. "I love that miser

ss our lives together till death breaks the chain. I will protect you,

h his other hand, fixing his eyes on those of Sagrario,

rity such as no poets have imagined. This night in which we have mutually confessed one to another, in

re weeping over the misery of their past, and the brevity of a love around which death was circling. Above, the lament

the strength of her feelings; he looked up at the luminous space with alm

iahs let spring arise. It will be a sad spring, without fruit, but it will have flowers. The sun shines for those who are in the open, but for us, dear companion, it is v