Part 46 (2/2)
”That is most true, senor,” Carlos responded.
”But to resume,” said the prior; ”for I have yet more to say. Should you be favoured with the grace of repentance, I am authorized to hold out to you a well-grounded hope, that, in consideration of your youth, your life may even yet be spared.”
”And then, if I were strong enough, I might live out ten or twenty years--like the last two,” Carlos answered, not without a touch of bitterness.
”It is not so, my son,” returned the prior mildly. ”I cannot promise, indeed, under any circ.u.mstances, to restore you to the world. For that would be to promise what could not be performed; and the laws of the Holy Office expressly forbid us to delude prisoners with false hopes.[#]
But this much I will say, your restraint shall be rendered so light and easy, that your position will be preferable to that of many a monk, who has taken the vows of his own free will. And if you like the society of the penitent of whom I spoke anon, you shall continue to enjoy it.”
[#] But these laws were often broken or evaded.
Carlos began to feel a somewhat unreasonable antipathy to this penitent, whose face he had never seen. But what mattered the antipathies of a prisoner of the Holy Office? He only said, ”Permit me again to thank you, my lord, for the kindness you have shown me. Though my fellow-men cast out my name as evil, and deny me my share of G.o.d's free air and sky, and my right to live in his world, I still take thankfully every word or deed of pity and gentleness they give me by the way. For they know not what they do.”
The prior turned away, but turned back again a moment afterwards, to ask--what for the credit of his humanity he ought to have asked a year before--”Do you stand in need of any thing? or have you any request you wish to make?”
Carlos hesitated a moment. Then he said, ”Of things with in your power to grant, my lord, there is but one that I care to ask. Two brethren of the Society of Jesus visited me the day before yesterday. I spoke hastily to one of them, who was named Fray Isodor, I think. Had I the opportunity, I should be glad to offer him my hand.”
”Now, of all mysterious things in heaven or earth,” said the prior, ”a heretic's conscience is the most difficult to comprehend. Truly you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. But as for Fray Isodor, you may rest content. For good and sufficient reasons, he cannot visit you here. But I will repeat to him what you have said. And I know well that his own tongue is a sharp weapon enough when used in the defence of the faith.”
The prior withdrew; and shortly afterwards one of the monks appeared, and silently conducted Carlos to a cell, or chamber, in the highest story of the building. Like the cells in the Triana, it had two doors--the outer one secured by strong bolts and bars, the inner one furnished with an aperture through which food or other things could be pa.s.sed.
But here the resemblance ceased. Carlos found himself, on entering, in what seemed to him more like a hall than a cell; though, indeed, it must be remembered that his eye was accustomed to ten feet square. It was furnished as comfortably as any room needed to be in that warm climate; and it was tolerably clean, a small mercy which he noted with no small grat.i.tude. Best perhaps of all, it had a good window, looking down on the courtyard, but strongly barred, of course. Near the window was a table, upon which stood an ivory crucifix, and a picture of the Madonna and child.
But even before his eye took in all these objects, it turned to the penitent, whose companions.h.i.+p had been granted him as so great a boon.
He was utterly unlike all that he had expected. Instead of a fussy, noisy pervert, he saw a serene and stately old man, with long white hair and beard, and still, clearly chiselled, handsome features. He was dressed in a kind of mantle, of a nondescript colour, made like a monk's cowl without the hood, and bearing two large St. Andrew's crosses, one on the breast and the other on the back; in fact, it was a compromised sanbenito.
As Carlos entered, he rose (showing a tall, spare figure, slightly stooped), and greeted his new companion with a courteous and elaborate bow, but did not speak.
Shortly afterwards, food was handed through the aperture in the door; and the half-starved prisoner from the Triana sat down with his fellow-captive to what he esteemed a really luxurious repast. He had intended to be silent until obliged to speak, but the aspect and bearing of the penitent quite disarranged his preconceived ideas. During the meal, he tried once and again to open a conversation by some slight courteous observation.
All in vain. The penitent did the honours of the table like a prince in disguise, and never failed to bow and answer, ”Yes, senor,” or ”No, senor,” to everything Carlos said. But he seemed either unable or unwilling to do more.
As the day wore on, this silence grew oppressive to Carlos; and he marvelled increasingly at his companion's want of ordinary interest in him, or curiosity about him. Until at length a probable solution of the mystery dawned upon his mind. As he considered the penitent an agent of the monks deputed to convert him, very likely the penitent, on his side, regarded him in the light of a spy commissioned to watch his proceedings.
But this, if it was true at all, was only a small part of the truth.
Carlos failed to take into account the terrible effect of long years of solitude, crus.h.i.+ng down all the faculties of the mind and heart. It is told of some monastery, where the rules were so severe that the brethren were only allowed to converse with each other during one hour in the week, that they usually sat for that hour in perfect silence: they had nothing to say. So it was with the penitent of the Dominican convent.
He had nothing to say, nothing to ask; curiosity and interest were dead within him--dead long ago, of absolute starvation.
Yet Carlos could not help observing him with a strange kind of fascination. His face was too still, too coldly calm, like a white marble statue; and yet it was a n.o.ble face. It was, although not a thoughtful face, the face of a thoughtful man asleep. It did not lack expressiveness, though it lacked expression. Moreover, there was in it a look that awakened dim, undefined memories--shadowy things, that fled away like ghosts whenever he tried to grasp them, yet persistently rose again, and mingled with all his thoughts.
He told himself many times that he had never seen the man before. Was it, then, an accidental likeness to some familiar face that so fixed and haunted him? Certainly there was something which belonged to his past, and which, even while it perplexed and baffled, strangely soothed and pleased him.
At each of the canonical hours (which were announced to them by the tolling of the convent bells), the penitent did not fail to kneel before the crucifix, and, with the aid of a book and a rosary, to read or repeat long Latin prayers, in a half audible voice. He retired to rest early, leaving his fellow-prisoner supremely happy in the enjoyment of his lamp and his Book of Hours. For it was two years since the eyes of the once enthusiastic young scholar had rested on a printed page, or since the kindly gleam of lamp or fire had cheered his solitude. The privilege of refres.h.i.+ng his memory with the pa.s.sages of Scripture contained in the Romish book of devotion now appeared an unspeakable boon to him. And although, accustomed as he was to a life of unbroken monotony, the varied impressions of the day had produced extreme weariness of mind and body, it was near midnight before he could prevail upon himself to close the volume, and lie down to rest on the comfortable pallet prepared for him.
He was just falling asleep, when the midnight bell tolled out heavily.
He saw his companion rise, throw his mantle over his shoulders, and betake himself to his devotions. How long these lasted he could not tell, for the stately kneeling figure soon mingled with his dreams--strange dreams of Juan as a penitent, dressed in a sanbenito, and with white hair and an old man's face, kneeling devoutly before the altar in the church at Nuera, but reciting one of the songs of the Cid instead of _De Profundis_.
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