A NEW bridge of stone has been built in the place of the old, but the
event has not been forgotten. It has passed into proverbial expressions.
"I may see you Tuesday," says a Limean, "unless the bridge falls." "My
cousin lives by the bridge of San Luis Rey," says another, and a smile
goes around the company, for that also means: under the sword of
Damocles. There are some poems about the accident, classics to be found
in every Peruvian anthology, but the real literary monument is Brother
Juniper's book.
There are a hundred ways of wondering at circumstance. Brother Juniper
would never have arrived at his method had it not been for his
friendship with a certain master in the University of San Martín. This
student's wife had stolen away one morning on a boat for Spain,
following a soldier, and had left him the care of two daughters in their
cradle. He was possessed of all the bitterness that Brother Juniper
lacked and derived a sort of joy from the conviction that all was wrong
in the world. He whispered into the Franciscan's ear such thoughts and
anecdotes as belied the notion of a guided world. For a moment a look of
distress, almost of defeat, would come into the Brother's eyes; then he
would begin patiently explaining why such stories held no difficulty for
a believer. "There was a queen of Naples and Sicily," the student would
say, "who discovered that she was carrying an angry tumor in her side.
In great dismay she commanded her subjects to fall to their prayers and
ordered that all the garments in Sicily and Naples be sewn with votive
crosses. She was well loved by her people and all their prayers and
embroideries were sincere, but ineffectual. Now she lies in the splendor
of Monreale, and a few inches above her heart may be read the words: _I
shall fear no evil_."
It was by dint of hearing a great many such sneers at faith that Brother
Juniper became convinced that the world's time had come for proof,
tabulated proof, of the conviction that was so bright and exciting
within him. When the pestilence visited his dear village of Puerto and
carried off a large number of peasants, he secretly drew up a diagram of
the characteristics of fifteen victims and fifteen survivors, the
statistics of their value _sub specie aeternitatis_. Each soul was rated
upon a basis of ten as regards its goodness, its diligence in religious
observance, and its importance to its family group. Here is a fragment
of this ambitious chart: