Thomas Strawbridge left "Sol y Sombra" and started back up the street,
hurrying out of habit but with no objective. His conversation with
the little monkey-eyed clerk had suddenly explained to the drummer
the squalor and filth of Canalejos. It was an intentional filth,
deliberately chosen to escape governmental mulcting. In short,
Venezuelan cities were especially designed to do business in the
worst possible way and with the greatest amount of friction and
inconvenience. Strawbridge was bewildered. He had come from a country
where the whole machinery of government is built for the especial
purpose of expediting business. Now this sudden reversal of motif
seemed to him a mad thing.
What was the object of it? If men did not organize a government to
promote business, why did any exist? Why did the shop-keepers persist
in running their dirty little shops? Why did the peons go and come, the
fishermen labor up and down the rapids? If business was strangled, what
reason was there for life to go on?
The drummer's steps had led him back to Plaza Mayor, and by this time
the square was full of people. Most of them were loiterers, sitting
on the park benches gazing listlessly at the palms and ornamental
evergreens, or watching the drip of a fountain too clogged to play.
In the center of the plaza was a statue, and the drummer was somewhat
surprised to observe that it was a full-length figure of General
Fombombo. The statue was of heroic size and held out in its hands a
scroll bearing the words, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
There was a slow movement, among the idlers, toward the cathedral.
Señoritas came by with their missals, beggars with their cups. Youths
and well-dressed men took a last puff at their eternal cigarettes,
tossed away the stubs, and wandered toward the gloomy temple.
Strawbridge had never been in a Roman Catholic church in his life. In
fact, since his boyhood he had scarcely been in any sort of church.
Now his desire for silence and a place to think out the riddle he had
found, drew him through the deeply recessed archway of the cathedral.
On one of the columns he saw the holy water, in a shell of a size that
amazed him in a superficial way. He passed on in and immediately forgot
the shell.
The interior of the church was a semi-darkness punctuated here and
there with groups of candles flickering before the different altars.
To the right hand of the entrance he saw a life-size effigy of the
crucifixion. The head of the figure drooped to one side, and the whole
body was painted the pallor of death.
With the impersonal and faintly interested eyes of an American tourist
the drummer stood looking at this figure. As he stood, an old man
with an aura of white hair shuffled up before the crucifix, laid down
a bundle on the stone floor, spread a filthy handkerchief, and knelt
stiffly on it. Then he stared fixedly at the effigy, and spread out his
old arms to it, and his lips began moving beneath his tobacco-stained
beard. In his earnestness his old head shook and nodded; he reached
up his scrawny arms farther and farther, as if to pull down from the
figure the good he was seeking. He arose and went; other men took his
place--young men, well-dressed men. They went through their devotions
openly and unashamed.
But Strawbridge was somehow shamed before them. It seemed to him
a rather improper thing for a man to be seen praying in public. In
North America, to pray in public is a sort of test of audacity, not
to say brazenness. In North America one who prays in public seldom
thinks about God; he thinks about how he looks and what the people
are thinking about his prayer. Now, for these Venezuelans to pray
to God earnestly and unaffectedly in the open made Strawbridge feel
uncomfortable, as if they were appearing in public wearing too few
clothes.
The women, on the other hand, somehow pleased him. As each señorita
and señora came in with a white handkerchief spread over her black
hair, touched the holy water to her forehead, lips, and breast, and
then knelt to pray, it gave the drummer a queer sense of intimacy and
pleasure.
Presently reading and responses began in one of the chapels hidden from
the American. The voice of the priest would rise in a muffled swell and
then taper into silence again; a moment later this would be followed
by a hushed babble of women's voices. There was something sad in the
reading and responses. The same words were repeated over and over and
filled the cathedral with a monotonous and melancholy music.
As Strawbridge stood musing among these frail and unaccustomed
pleasures, his mind moved vaguely about the question which had brought
him there: what could the Venezuelans find in life to take the place of
business? Upon what other cord could any man string the rosary of his
days? As the women came and went, as the responses filled the church
with a many-tongued music, as the odor of incense flattered the gloom,
he pondered his question, but could find no answer.
The drummer found a seat near a column of the nave and relaxed,
American fashion, with his legs spread out and his arms lying along the
back of the bench. He stopped thinking toward any point and allowed
his fancies to drift idly. The life of the cathedral slowly developed
itself around him. A woman was on her knees just inside the altar-rail,
scrubbing the tiled floor. Several acolytes in lace robes were gathered
in the transept, perhaps waiting to take part in some later mass. A
priest in his cassock loitered near a confessional, evidently expecting
a penitent. Presently a little girl did come and step into the double
stall of the confessional. The father moved into the other side with
the slowness of a heavy man and with a mechanical movement lifted the
little shutter in the partition. The child placed her face in the
aperture and began to whisper.
Strawbridge sat and looked with a dreamy emptiness at the priest and
the little girl. He could feel the bench pressing his body and catch
the queer fragrance of incense. Presently the child stepped out of the
confessional and began a round of the stations, kneeling and telling
her beads before each one. A beggar entered the booth and presently
went away. A few moments later, to the drummer's surprise, Coronel
Saturnino came down the aisle and stepped into the confessional. The
officer put his mouth to the orifice and whispered steadily for five or
ten minutes. Strawbridge could see his profile against the darkness of
the booth--a handsome, almost flawless profile, with a slight sardonic
molding about the nose and the corners of the mouth even in this moment
of confession.
Strawbridge wondered what he was confessing; what kind of sins
Saturnino committed.
Just then a hand touched the American's outstretched arm. The drummer
looked around and saw Gumersindo standing at the back of his seat. The
negro bowed slightly, with his thick lips smiling. Strawbridge aroused
himself, really glad to see Gumersindo. He got up and joined the
colored man.
"Lots of folks in church to-day," he whispered.
Gumersindo nodded.
"The cavalry expect to go to San Geronimo soon. There is always a
crowding in for confession before such an expedition."
"Oh! I see." Strawbridge was rather taken aback. He looked across at
the opposite aisle, where two or three soldiers were standing near
another confessional, awaiting their turn. "Do they really believe
anything is going to happen to them?"
"Why, they know it!" Gumersindo considered Strawbridge, faintly
surprised at such a question; then he evidently decided it was one of
those thoughtless queries such as every one makes at times, for he
passed to another subject: "Would you like to go down into the crypt?"
Strawbridge agreed, with his mind still hovering about San Geronimo.
The negro led the way, tiptoeing through the big, murmuring cathedral:
"There's a great painting in that chapel," he said, pointing into one
as they passed, but not stopping to enter it; "you must see it some
day." Strawbridge said he would, and immediately forgot it.
They passed through the transept and round behind the high altar. In
the passage they found another priest, walking slowly back and forth,
reading some religious book. Gumersindo introduced Strawbridge to
Father Benicio. The priest's face held the worn, ascetic look of a
celibate who endures the ardors of the tropics.
"Señor Strawbridge is the American gentleman whom I brought back from
Caracas," proceeded the editor; "perhaps you noticed my article about
him in the 'Correo'?"
"I have not seen to-day's 'Correo,'" said the father, looking, with the
shrewd eyes of his calling, at the American.
Gumersindo was already drawing from his pocket a damp copy of his
paper. He opened the limp sheet and handed it to the priest, with his
finger at the article. Then he turned away and pretended to inspect
the carving on the reredos, glancing repeatedly toward the readers to
see what effect his article was producing.
The article itself was typical Spanish-American rhetoric. It referred
to the drummer as a merchant prince, a distinguished manufacturer, a
world-famous exporter, and once it called him the illustrious Vulcan of
the Liberal Arts, a flourish based on the fact that Strawbridge sold
hardware.
When they had finished reading, the black man turned with his face
beaming in anticipation of praise.
"Elegantly done, Gumersindo," pæaned the priest. "You have a very rich
style."
The editor lifted his brows.
"I never hope to command a style, Father. I always write simply. It is
all I can do."
Father Benicio patted the black man's arm and smiled the rather
bloodless smile of the repressed.
"He is a fountain of eloquence and doesn't know it; don't you think so,
Señor Strawbridge?"
"I was never called so many fine names in all my life," murmured
Strawbridge, in the subdued tones all three men were using. "I must
have a bundle of these papers to send home."
Gumersindo beamed, and said all Strawbridge needed to do was to give
him the names and he would mail out copies direct. Then he again
proposed going down into the crypt.
The father agreed. He gathered his cassock about him for convenience
in descending the steps, produced a key, opened a small door in the
back wall of the cathedral, then, apologizing for preceding his guests,
stepped into the opening.
The American followed the editor and groped down a flight of clammy
steps into a cellar about ten feet deep. The priest presently found a
match and a candle and lighted the cold, unventilated crypt. In the
dim light Father Benicio pointed out some old stone slabs set in the
sides of the crypt, with half-obliterated names carved upon them. Then
he began a recountal of the doings of the first Benedictines who had
come into the Orinoco country in 1573. They had formed a flourishing
colony, but the evil deeds of the Guipuzcoana Company had provoked the
Indians to attack the religious colony, and many of the monks were
massacred. The gravestones marked those early martyrs.
With a certain fire the priest told the tale. These early fathers were
links in a chain to which he, himself, belonged. Their constancy, their
devotion to duty, their faithfulness unto death were ensamples often in
his heart, which warmed his monastic life.
Strawbridge did not feel the faintest interest in Father Benicio's
recital. He looked at the stone slabs without any widening of his
vision of the past. Indeed, anything that antedated 1890 was without
interest to him. To the drummer, history had no connection with the
present. If he had analyzed his impressions he would have found that
he believed that all the acts of mankind prior to the nineties formed
history and were completely cut asunder from the press and importance
of to-day. The world in which Mr. Thomas Strawbridge lived and had his
being was absolutely new and up to date. It was like a new steam-heated
apartment house with all the elevators running and the water
connections going, and it was utterly cut off from all the past efforts
and struggles of mankind. History, to him, was not even the blue-prints
from which this house was built, the brick and mortar of which it was
constructed. It was simply a kind of confusion that went on in the
world until men settled down and produced something worth while--that
is to say, the American nation and the New York skyscrapers.
He yawned under his fingers.
"I wonder what they did for a living, back there." He touched one of
the stones with his foot.
Father Benicio glanced around at him.
"They raised maize, bananas, and a few chickens," he said drily.
"Ship 'em back to ... Spain?" hazarded the drummer.
"No, they simply lived on what they cultivated, and what the Indians
gave them."
The salesman's interest flickered out completely. He glanced at the
gravestones of the unenterprising monks and moved a step toward the
stairs.
Gumersindo attempted to stir up human interest by pointing out a slab
of stone in the bottom of the crypt.
"This is not a gravestone; it conceals the entrance of a tunnel. The
early Spanish settlers were great troglodytes, Señor Strawbridge. It is
impossible to find an old castle or an old church without a tunnel or
two leading into it."
"It was necessary in those unsettled times when a man's house was
likely to be burned with the man in it unless he could slip out," put
in the priest.
"Where does it lead to?" asked Strawbridge, taking rather more interest
in this purely mechanical arrangement than in the human background
which caused the tunnels to be dug.
"One branch leads down to the river, another to the _palacio_, and
another to the prison, La Fortuna."
Strawbridge suppressed another yawn and dismissed the tunnels from his
mind. His thoughts came back to the original problem which had brought
him to the cathedral. He broke out rather abruptly:
"Say, I suppose both you fellows know about the general and his ... er
... business methods?"
Editor and priest looked at their guest quite blankly.
"I mean his method of ... well, ... of confiscating ranches and horses
and stores, provisions, and such like. Now, that's a rotten way to do.
I was wondering whether a good, straightforward talk with him wouldn't
help some."
By now the two men were staring at Strawbridge as if one of the old
monks had risen out of his tomb.
"Señor," said the priest, in a queer voice, "would you have the
goodness to explain yourself?"
"Sure! A chap told me while ago that the general arrested a rancher and
took his ranch. I've been thinking about it all morning."
"The ranch to which your informant alludes," said Gumersindo, in a cold
voice, "was deserted, and General Fombombo occupied it as waste land."
The drummer laughed friendlily.
"Yes, I know about that, but just how the general hunched the man off
his ranch has nothing to do with it. I say any kind of hunching is bad
business." The drummer became very earnest: "Now look here, both you
fellows know the only way to make a country pay is through business.
Now, look at these old monks--" he nodded at the stones. "Fizzled out
because they didn't develop their holdings. I don't know just what they
did do, but it's clear they built this church instead of building a
factory. No returns; see? All overhead and no production. Not that I'm
against praying," he added, with a placating gesture toward the priest.
"I'm for it. I think it peps one up, but, as my old man says, 'Get in
your prayers when there is no customer in sight'; see? Just to come
down to facts: these old boys didn't run on business principles.
"Now, here's what I'm driving at: The general's idea of grabbing
things balls up the market. Your market has got to be open and it's
got to be protected before you get any real big volume of trade. Any
man in General Fombombo's shoes can get better returns in the way of
legitimate taxes on legitimate business than he can by grabbing what's
in sight and scaring off business men. For, let me tell you, the eagle
on the dollar is just about the timidest bird you ever tried to get to
roost in your hen-house, and that's straight."
Strawbridge came to an earnest and apparently a questioning pause. The
editor and the priest stood looking at him in the candle-light, quite
as silent as the ancient and unbusinesslike monks beneath their feet.
After a while the editor asked in a strange voice:
"Why have you ... said these things to us, Señor Strawbridge?"
"I'm asking your advice."
"About what?"
"About talking this over with the general. I believe he is making a
business mistake. He would realize more if he would boost business
instead of knocking it. Perhaps you've read that little poem,
"It's better to boost than to knock;
It's better to help than to shove,
We're brothers all, on the road of Life,
And the law of the road is Love."
The editor said he had never read it.
"The thing I'm driving at," proceeded the drummer, "is, would it be
good business for me to spring this on the general? You see, I might
queer a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar order for rifles. Still,
if he could see the real business side of the situation, I might
establish a market for millions of dollars' worth of hardware. What do
you think about it? Would you run the risk?"
The priest chose to answer:
"Our President is rather a man of impulse, Señor Strawbridge."
The big American nodded.
"I see what you mean." He looked at Gumersindo.
"The future is always uncertain, Señor Strawbridge," observed the
editor.
Strawbridge nodded.
"Uh huh; I see you agree with Father Benicio." He paused, thinking.
"Well, ... I don't know...." He continued to ponder the problem before
him, and presently quoted, perhaps subconsciously:
"Did you speak that word of warning?
Did you act the part of friend?
Do your duty resolutely;
It means dollars in the end."