The Conde de Urdiales began to speak German with Anna. She was hardly aware that the language had been changed, for her disjointed thoughts had been running in German. Isabelita’s attention was attracted.
“Speak Christian, Miguel!” she laughed. “The good God made it to talk to women in. And Anna speaks so well.”
“She does indeed,” agreed de Urdiales. “She learns amazingly quickly.”
“Ay de mi!” exclaimed Isabelita with mock sorrow. “I wish she would let me teach her to dance!”
The mists very suddenly cleared away from Anna’s brain. She was back at the point where she had stopped the orchestra. Hatred and fury overwhelmed her—against Spain and the civil governor, against Isabelita. Above all, against Isabelita. Her fingers caressed the long water goblet in front of her. She turned deliberately to de Urdiales.
“You see,” she said slowly, “I have not the training. You must learn and train and train and learn”—her voice rose to a scream of misery and passion. “You must learn to drink and laugh at men and insult women! You must have technique …”
She smashed the goblet so swiftly that not one of them had time to think what it could mean. Then she drew the glass knife with a single powerful cut through vein and muscle across the underside of Isabelita’s knees.
The men tried to hold her, but could not. She was away from them, away from the doorkeepers, and out into the street, running, running. She did not know whether they were after her. She was not trying to escape. She ran from the blood. She ran because running stopped her thinking what she had done. Her feet, undirected by herself, took her to the port, and there they found her in the morning exhausted by weeping and asleep upon a pile of crates marked “Hamburg”; they sent her on board the ship with them, for Isabelita had said that she would make no charge against her.
THE CHAPLAIN TO THE EMBASSY
PADRE FRANCISCO was listening. The arc of the mountains encircled him on all sides but one, where shone the deserted sea. There was a fast, clear stream at his feet, and on the farther bank a meadow, very-green and studded with white boulders and jeweled with low flowers in the short grass. It was spring, and there were children in the meadow; one of them held a lamb by the forefeet and played that he was teaching it to dance. Men said there was war in Spain, but Spain was beyond Galicia and Galicia beyond the mountains. No railway crossed the mountains, nor any way but one, and that unkindly to horse and man. Caladonga had its cove by the sea, but only the fishermen of the village ever landed there, for it offered no open entry to the passing craft.
Padre Francisco was listening to music: the music of a pipe which trilled and warbled from a bank of yellow iris by the stream. The child did not hear it, though his feet moved in time to the measure. The lamb heard, and its head was turned towards the stream. Padre Francisco heard. His cloth did not protect him from the pipe of Pan, for he was innocent and beloved. He raised his hand and blessed the pipe and its player. All creatures in Caladonga, seen or unseen, were his flock.
There was no shame, either of men or of the Others, among his flock, for he did not accuse. He knew the spring upon the hillside visited at the new moon by the unmarried girls. He left untouched the grains of wheat scattered upon the high stone which stood in a ring of uncut grass. He was silent when the returning fishermen poured wine into the sea opposite a silver-sanded cave. Padre Francisco had blessed these sanctuaries. He said:—
“If there is need of your charity, give, my children. But give in the name of the Most High and pray for him that receives.”
For sixty years he had tended his parish—a white, red-roofed village and its little plain, forgotten of all save the carrier and his mule. He had never left it, nor had he ever tired of it. His eyes were thankful and rejoiced in the detail of the earth as if he had been reborn each morning with the sun. His faith was humble and complete. His theology was the theology of Caladonga. He read the pastorals of a bishop whom he had never seen, bidding him guard against this and that heresy, and this and that deadly sin. “Nay, but there is no deadly sin,” said Padre Francisco. Caladonga had no sin that he could not readily forgive, and to him Caladonga was the world.
As he sat on the bank of the stream, a peasant came to him and saluted him. His name was Castor He-of-the-Oranges. He had no other surname. Castor stood as if ashamed, with bent head and folded hands, waiting for the old man to speak to him. Padre Francisco looked at him sorrowfully.
“Does it trouble you still, Castor?” he asked.
“Yes. You must exorcise it, padre. It will not go away.”
“Castor, Castor, that which has been created should not be hurt.”
“Then do it gently, padre! My house is unhappy, and you must help us. We cannot sleep for the noises and the drifting lights, but because you told us to be forgiving we have borne with them. We summoned the curandera, the wise woman—”
“That was sin, my son,” interrupted Padre Francisco, shaking his silver head.
“I know it, padre—but what were we to do? The spirit pinched her and she ran away shrieking. That too we could forgive, for the curandera was insolent and demanded money. But now we dare not be patient any longer. This morning I found my two oxen tied together by the hairs of their tails. They were sweating with panic, and must be bled or they will die. Without our oxen we should starve. You must help us, padre.”
“So be it, then,” said Padre Francisco.
He rose. The eddies of the breeze played around his cassock, moulding it to his spare figure with love, as if he had been a young girl in whom the winds delighted.
Together they walked along the stream. When they came to the village bridge Padre Francisco stopped.
“Castor,” he asked, “if it were a mischievous boy who played these tricks on you, you would not cast him out of your house forever?”
“But it is not a boy,” said the peasant simply.
The old man sighed, and went on alone towards his church.
Castor with his wife and children waited for him at the door of their white cottage. The faded blue of the lintels and twisted balconies held all the colors of the sky. Two orange trees stood in the garden with late fruit still showing like flowers among the leaves. The spirit haunted the house because he loved it, not because he must.
Now wearing his stole and carrying a flask of holy water, Francisco came to them and blessed them. Humbly he prayed that he might be worthy, and forthwith began the conjuration. Severe and terrible was the Latin, but Padre Francisco’s voice was gentle.
“I adjure thee, Old Serpent—” he began.
But it was no command. He was the superior and knew that he would be obeyed; therefore he had no need of vehemence.
“Audi ergo, Satana, et time! Hear therefore, Satan, and fear! Conquered and prostrate, retire!”
Padre Francisco meant what he said, for it was a naughty deed to tie his parishioner’s oxen together by the tails. He hoped that the spirit would not be very frightened, but he intended that it should retire.
Five psalms he said, and sprinkled the house with holy water; then again five psalms and for a third time five. The last was Ecce quam bonum—behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! As the old man intoned the psalm, he heard the words echoed to a melody that soared in a golden treble over his voice.
“Dominus vobiscum,” said Padre Francisco.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” answered They-of-the-Oranges.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” said a grateful voice as of one passing through the doorway.
Padre Francisco walked back to the church and took off his stole. Then he went down to the seashore and sat upon the sand of the cove, for he was sorrowful and wished to be alone.
The cove was like an inland pool. The sea entered through an archway, and above the packed swell of the Atlantic the sheep pastured on a roof of green turf. From the horns of
the crescent-shaped beach where Padre Francisco sat, two low cliffs converged upon the archway; through the entry he could see an anchored boat lifting and falling on the open sea, and beyond it the horizon. At his feet the water was pale green, transparent over the shelving sand; under the cliffs to right and to left of him it was blue and purple, and brown shadows glided about their business.
There indeed was Padre Francisco in the midst of love. The shepherd above the arch called to him good-day. The fisherman in the boat waved a hand, and held up a creel of rock bass for him to see. A cormorant which sat like an old serpent—it was Padre Francisco’s metaphor—upon a ledge of rock straightened its sinuous neck, swooped, and landed in the ripples at his feet. The great black bird sidled up to him, blinking its eyes. It looked at him long and fearlessly, as if judging his worth. Its pupils were red and inset with curious reflections.
“What is good and what is evil?” thought Padre Francisco. “I can see no evil, and therefore I will pray for guidance.”
Now this was not accounted a sin to Padre Francisco, for, as the whims of a sick child may command its parents, so were Heaven and Hell disturbed by the vagaries of this earth. “What is good?” asked the advance guard of the angels. “What is evil?” asked the left wing of the armies of Satan.
And Satan went to and fro upon the earth and longed for the ancient days, for he could not recognize his servants or his enemies. There were those who destroyed the Church for the sake of Faith, and those who destroyed Faith for the sake of the Church. Nor did death decide the loyalties of a perverse generation. Austere, religious souls floated to Heaven and declared themselves atheists. The worldly plunged downwards into Hell, where they were found to be clerics of blameless life and irreproachable morality.
But Satan knew that the earth, though it was but a little earth, was greatly beloved in Heaven as in Hell. Therefore he drew up a great document in Hebrew and Latin and letters of fire, which began “forasmuch as we satan are at a loss” and resolved itself into magnificent periods upon the inalienable rights of the High Contracting Parties. But in Heaven his meaning was understood. It was made known to him that he had only to choose an acceptable ambassador for Heaven to be represented at his Court.
He asked for Michael, since they had been friends in the fresh morning of eternity, and as enemies they had respected one another. And Michael took up his residence in Hell, heralded by four secretaries to the Embassy who were the four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
Many were the banquets and rejoicings at the Embassy. The windless night of the damned was rich with music. David came down and played the harp for them, and Nero’s violin wailed upwards into chaos borne on the winged feet of Saint Cecilia at the organ. Pan composed a symphony on dawn, and played it on his pipe, accompanied by the trumpeters of an Archangel’s Guard.
And on a certain evening Satan and Michael walked in the garden of the Embassy and wept together that the simplicity of earth was lost.
“There are many who believe in you,” said the Devil, “but so few left who believe in us. And now the time has come for one of the last of them to die. May we give him a gift, Michael?”
“Why not?” asked Michael.
“Because he is one of your servants,” Satan explained. “A certain Padre Francisco of Caladonga in Galicia.”
“I am weary of Spanish priests,” said Michael.
“I am weary of Spanish anarchists,” retorted Satan.
“What has he done for your people?” asked Michael.
“He has pitied them,” said the Devil. “By all I hear, I think he is a saint.”
“And a Christian too?” the Archangel asked.
“As in the ancient days, Michael, when saints were saints and the Tempter tempted.”
And Michael perceived that, exchanging one courtesy for another, he could obtain for his Embassy the one dignity that it lacked.
“Satan,” he said, “I need a chaplain.”
“I am old,” answered the Devil, “but not a bigot. Myself, I would willingly attend a service. But I do not know if my people would stand it. I really do not.”
“Even if my chaplain were Padre Francisco of Caladonga?”
“I will have a look at him,” said Satan.
Now it was at this moment in the time of earth that the cormorant sidled up to Padre Francisco.
“You can have your chaplain,” said the Devil, restoring his spirit to eternity. “But what of the gift my people would present to him?”
“We give you his death,” answered Michael.
Padre Francisco lay back upon the sand with his hands crossed at his throat. He was tired, and it was good to feel the strength of his beloved earth against his back and the warmth of the sun upon his body. He closed his eyes. A ripple of water like the streaming arrow at the bows of a light boat formed in the archway and curled towards him across the cove. In the brown and purple shadows of the cliffs seven ripples formed upon his right hand, and seven ripples upon his left. Smaller than the first they were, and shaped like cupids’ bows; they might have been moulded to the breasts of women advancing through the water; they took on the colors of the sun like little breaking waves. The sheep above the arch moved away, and the shepherd followed them; there was, as it were, a sea haze forming upon the turf, and he was afraid to stay. Behind Padre Francisco the grasses of the fields waved in the wind, but there were many winds from many quarters, and the ranks of the flowers bent and straightened as the spirits of earth passed on towards the cove.
The ripple that had formed under the arch reached the shore, and Padre Francisco was awakened by the singing of many voices. He sat up, and then leapt to his feet in wonder and in joy at those who compassed him about. His lips parted and his eyes were full of tears. He opened his arms as if to gather into them the massed armies of the spirits, and he cried:—
“Lo! Before I die I have seen the glory of the living earth!”
The angels caught up Padre Francisco from the midst of his lovers, and took him into Heaven and robed and anointed him. The Saints received him into their number and led him out to the gates, chanting in procession. Then, olive-crowned, borne upon the wings of doves with satyrs dancing before and behind, guarded by the drawn swords of the squadrons of the Prince of Darkness, Padre Francisco entered into Hell.
AN IRISHMAN AND A JEW
THE liner plunged down the first of the great Biscay seas and met the second with a crash and shudder that set in motion all movable objects within her. The sigh of human beings, each in his prison of paneled teak or painted iron, sounded through the Alhaurin like a passing ghost, while a loose water pipe, a chair sliding across the lounge, a falling shaving brush, and the crated locomotive at the bottom of No. 3 Hold mingled their sounds with a thousand others into one distant and all-pervasive groan.
Mr. Flynn, finding his feet suddenly higher than his head, was inspired to raise them still higher and to kick a tattoo against the springs of the empty bunk above him.
“Danno, me boy,” he said loudly, “ye’ve been shipped to Buenos Aires like an old maid’s dream. Ye’re dishonored forever, Danno, and the little yellow man that bought your soul will be driving you to market seven days a week. Or would they be eating horseflesh, now, in Brazil? God help you, you have the drink taken, and there’s none to listen to you!”
Danno Flynn heaved himself down his bunk until the small of his back was resting upon the foot of it. From this position he could reach the bell with his big toe; he fang it, propped up his heel on the rosette, crossed his legs, and fell asleep again.
His precarious balance was disturbed by the opening of the stateroom door. Mr. Flynn raised his knees to his chest, and a simultaneous and violent pitch of the ship rolled him head over heels so that he came to rest on all fours. With his dark skin, his hair falling over his eyes, and the black and grey of his unshaven bristles and untidy moustache, he looked r
emarkably like an excited sheep dog. The steward stared at this tousled quadruped, which stared back at him.
“Wuff, wuff!” barked Danno Flynn, suddenly appreciating his own fantastic appearance.
“Is there anything you want, sir?” stammered the steward, carefully keeping all but his head and one shoulder behind the door.
“There is,” said Danno. “Will ye tell the Canine Defense League of Connemara that I am shipped to Buenos Aires?”
“It says on your card that you’re going to Santos, sir.”
“Do you have the time now, steward?” asked Danno, seeing that conversation with this literal-minded Englishman would be difficult.
“Eight o’clock—and the second day out from London, sir,” answered the steward pointedly.
“And where the devil are we?”
“In the Bay.”
“Be God, if it’s a bay,” said Danno Flynn, “’tis no liking I will have for the ocean. Or is it a bay now beyond the western isles where the waves dance from the four corners of the world, and the heroes catting into them from the right hand and from the left as they sail to their long home?”
“It’s the Bay of Biscay, sir,” said the steward.
“Then I’ll be having a beer.”
“Sorry, sir! Bar’s shut!”
“Ah, to hell with you!” said Danno, rolling backwards and pulling the sheets over his head.
At midday the Alhaurin was a dripping nucleus of solidity between the low grey sky above her and the grey seas that she rode. The squalls blew up from the west, driving hard and low into the promenade decks. The spray and rain swept the main deck so that the hatches between the first and third class were low islands in a miniature surf that broke against them with every roll of the ship. There was no one about save an occasional oilskinned seaman or officer paddling grimly to duty. Under the lee of the smoking room two hardy Englishwomen were bundled up in chairs and regarding the Bay with well-bred contempt; they gave an impression of holding under their rugs Britannia’s shield and trident.
The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories Page 20