Part 32 (1/2)
”Perhaps you are not sorry to part with it?”
”I deserve that you should say so,” answered Gonsalvo, with unwonted gentleness. ”But the truth is,” he added, with a wan, sickly smile, ”nothing can part me from it now, for I have learned almost every word of it by heart.”
”How could you, in so short a time, accomplish such a task?” asked Juan, in surprise.
”Easily enough. I was alone long hours of the day, when I could read; and in the silent, sleepless nights I could recall and repeat what I read during the day. But for that I should be in truth what they call me--mad.”
”Then you love its words?”
”I _fear_ them,” cried Gonsalvo, with strange energy, flinging out his wasted arm over the counterpane. ”They are words of life--words of fire. They are, to the Church's words, the priest's threatenings, the priest's pardons, what your limbs, throbbing with healthy vigorous life, are to mine--cold, dead, impotent; or what the living champion--steel from head to heel, the Toledo blade in his strong right hand--is to the painted San Cristofro on the Cathedral door. Because I dare to say so much, my father pretends to think me mad; lest, wrecked as I am in mind and body, I should still find one terrible consolation,--that of flinging the truth for once in the face of the scribes and Pharisees, and then suffering for it--like Don Carlos.”
He was silent from exhaustion, and lay with closed eyes and deathlike countenance. After a long pause, he resumed, in a low, weak voice,--
”Some words are good--perhaps. There was San Pablo, who was a blasphemer, and injurious.”
”Don Gonsalvo, my brother once said he would give his right hand that you shared his faith.”
”Oh, did he?” A quick flush overspread the wan face. ”But hark! a step on the stairs! My mother's.”
”I am neither afraid nor ashamed to be found here,” said Don Juan.
”My poor mother! She has shown me more tenderness of late than I deserved at her hands. Do not let us involve her in trouble.”
Juan greeted his aunt with due courtesy, and even attempted some words of condolence upon his cousin's illness. But he saw that the poor lady was terribly disconcerted, and indeed frightened, by his presence there.
And not without cause, since mischief, even to bloodshed, might have followed had Don Manuel or either of his sons found Juan in communication with Gonsalvo. She conjured him to go, adding, by way of inducement,--
”Dona Beatriz is taking the air in the garden.”
”Availing myself of your gracious permission, senora my aunt, I shall offer her my homage there; and so I kiss your feet--Adis, Don Gonsalvo.”
”Adis, my cousin.”
Dona Katarina followed him out of the room.
”He is not sane,” she whispered anxiously, laying her hand on his arm; ”he is out of his mind. You perceive it clearly, Don Juan?”
”Certainly I shall not dispute it, senora,” Juan answered, prudently.
XXIX.
A Friend at Court
”I have a soul and body that exact A comfortable care in many ways.”--R. Browning
Don Juan's peril was extreme. Well known as he was to many of the imprisoned Lutherans, it seemed a desperate chance that, amongst the numerous confessions wrung from them, no mention of his name should occur. He knew himself deeply implicated in the crime for which they were suffering--the one unpardonable crime in the eyes of Rome.
Moreover, unlike his brother, whose temperament would have led him to avoid danger by every lawful means, he was by nature brave even to rashness, and bold even to recklessness. It was his custom to wear his heart on his lips; and though of late stern necessity had taught him to conceal what he thought, it was neither his inclination nor his habit to disguise what he felt. Probably, not even his desire to aid Carlos would have prevented his compromising himself by some rash word or deed, had not the soft hand of Dona Beatriz, strong in its weakness, held him back from destruction. Not for one instant could he forget her terrible vow. With this for ever before his eyes, it is little marvel if he was willing to do anything, to bear anything--ay, almost to feign anything--rather than involve her he loved in a fate inconceivably horrible.
And--alas for the brave, honest-hearted, truthful Don Juan Alvarez!--it was often necessary to feign. If he meant to remain in Seville, and to avoid the dungeons of the Inquisition, he must obviate--or remove--suspicion by protesting, both by word and action, his devotion to the Catholic Church, and his hatred of heresy.