Alfonso G. 4 4 10
Nina 2 5 10
Manuel B. 10 10 0
Alfonso V. -8 —10 10
Vera N. 0 10 10
The thing was more difficult than he had foreseen. Almost every soul in
a difficult frontier community turned out to be indispensable
economically, and the third column was all but useless. The examiner was
driven to the use of minus terms when he confronted the personal
character of Alfonso V., who was not, like Vera N., merely bad: he was a
propagandist for badness and not merely avoided church but led others to
avoid it. Vera N. was indeed bad, but she was a model worshipper and the
mainstay of a full hut. From all this saddening data Brother Juniper
contrived an index for each peasant. He added up the total for victims
and compared it with the total for survivors, to discover that the dead
were five times more worth saving. It almost looked as though the
pestilence had been directed against the really valuable people in the
village of Puerto. And on that afternoon Brother Juniper took a walk
along the edge of the Pacific. He tore up his findings and cast them
into the waves; he gazed for an hour upon the great clouds of pearl that
hang forever upon the horizon of that sea, and extracted from their
beauty a resignation that he did not permit his reason to examine. The
discrepancy between faith and the facts is greater than is generally
assumed.
But there was another story of the master of San Martín (not so
subversive, this one) that probably gave to Brother Juniper the hint for
his procedure after the fall of the bridge of San Luis Rey.
This master was one day walking through the Cathedral of Lima and
stopped to read the epitaph of a lady. He read with an increasingly
prominent lower lip that she had been for twenty years the centre and
joy of her home, that she had been the delight of her friends, that all
who met her went away in astonishment at her goodness and beauty, and
that there she lay awaiting the return of her Lord. Now on the day that
he read these words, the master of San Martín had had much to fret him,
and raising his eyes from the tablet he spoke aloud in his rage: "The
shame of it, the persecution of it! Everyone knows that in the world we
do nothing but feed our wills. Why perpetuate this legend of
selflessness? Why keep this thing alive, this rumour of
disinterestedness?"
And so saying he resolved to expose this conspiracy of the
stone-cutters. The lady had been dead only twelve years. He sought out
her servants, her children and her friends. And everywhere he went, like
a perfume, her dear traits had survived her and wherever she was
mentioned there arose a suffering smile and the protest that words could
not describe the gracious ways of her. Even the eager youth of her
grandchildren, who had never seen her, was made more difficult by the
news that it was possible to be as good as that. And the man stood
amazed; only at last he muttered: "Nevertheless, what I said was true.
This woman was an exception, perhaps an exception."
In compiling his book about these people Brother Juniper seemed to be
pursued by the fear that in omitting the slightest detail he might lose
some guiding hint. The longer he worked the more he felt that he was
stumbling about among great dim intimations. He was forever being
cheated by details that looked as though they were significant if only
he could find their setting. So he put everything down on the notion
perhaps that if he (or a keener head) reread the book twenty times, the
countless facts would suddenly start to move, to assemble, and to betray
their secret. The Marquesa de Montemayor's cook told him that she lived
almost entirely on rice, fish and a little fruit and Brother Juniper put
it down on the chance that it would some day reveal a spiritual trait.
Don Rubío said of her that she used to appear at his receptions without
invitation in order to steal the spoons. A midwife on the edge of the
town declared that Doña María called upon her with morbid questions
until she had been obliged to order her away from the door like a
beggar. The bookseller of the town reported that she was one of the
three most cultivated persons in Lima. Her farmer's wife declared that
she was absent-minded, but compact of goodness. The art of biography is
more difficult than is generally supposed.
Brother Juniper found that there was least to be learned from those who
had been most closely associated with the subjects of his inquiry. Madre
María del Pilar talked to him at length about Pepita, but she did not
tell him of her own ambitions for her. The Perichole was at first
difficult of approach, but presently even liked the Franciscan. Her
characterization of Uncle Pio flatly contradicted the stores of unsavory
testimonies that he had acquired elsewhere. Her allusions to her son
were few and conceded with pain. They closed the interview abruptly. The
Captain Alvarado told what he could of Esteban and of Uncle Pio. Those
who know most in this realm, venture least.
I shall spare you Brother Juniper's generalizations. They are always
with us. He thought he saw in the same accident, the wicked visited by
destruction and the good called early to Heaven. He thought he saw pride
and wealth confounded as an object lesson to the world, and he thought
he saw humility crowned and rewarded for the edification of the city.
But Brother Juniper was not satisfied with his reasons. It was just
possible that the Marquesa de Montemayor was not a monster of avarice,
and Uncle Pio of self-indulgence.
The book being done fell under the eyes of some judges and was suddenly
pronounced heretical. It was ordered to be burned in the Square with its
author. Brother Juniper submitted to the decision that the devil had
made use of him to effect a brilliant campaign in Peru. He sat in his
cell that last night trying to seek in his own life the pattern that had
escaped him in five others. He was not rebellious. He was willing to lay
down his life for the purity of the church, but he longed for one voice
somewhere to testify for him that his intention, at least, had been for
faith; he thought there was no one in the world who believed him. But
the next morning in all that crowd and sunlight there were many who
believed, for he was much loved.
[Illustration]
There was a little delegation from the village of Puerto, and Nina
(Goodness 2, Piety 5, Usefulness 10) and others stood with drawn puzzled
faces while their little friar was given to the congenial flames. Even
then, even then, there remained in his heart an obstinate nerve
insisting that at least St. Francis would not utterly have condemned
him, and (not daring to call upon a greater name, since he seemed so
open to error in these matters) he called twice upon St. Francis I and
leaning upon a flame he smiled and died.
* * * * * * *
The day of the service was clear and warm. The Limeans, their black eyes
wide with awe, poured through the streets into their Cathedral and stood
gazing at the mound of black velvet and silver. The Archbishop enclosed
in his wonderful and almost wooden vestments perspired upon his throne,
lending from time to time a connoisseur's ear to the felicities of
Vittoria's counterpoint. The choir had restudied the pages that, as his
farewell to music, Tomás Luis had composed for his friend and patron,
the Empress of Austria, and all that grief and sweetness, all that
Spanish realism filtering through an Italian mode, rose and fell above
the sea of mantillas. Don. Andrés, under the colours and feathered
hangings of his office, knelt, ill and troubled. He knew that the crowd
was furtively glancing at him, expecting him to play the father who has
lost his only son. He wondered whether the Perichole was present. He had
never been obliged to go so long without smoking. The Captain Alvarado
pushed in from the sunny square for a moment. He looked across the
fields of black hair and lace at the trooping of the candles and the
ropes of incense. "How false, how unreal," he said and pushed his way
out. He descended to the sea and sat on the edge of his boat, gazing
down into the clear water. "Happy are the drowned, Esteban," he said.
Behind the screen the Abbess sat among her girls. The night before she
had torn an idol from her heart and the experience had left her pale but
firm. She had accepted the fact that it was of no importance whether her
work went on or not; it was enough to work. She was the nurse who tends
the sick who never recover; she was the priest who perpetually renews
the office before an altar to which no worshippers come. There would be
no Pepita to enlarge her work; it would relapse into the indolence and
the indifference of her colleagues. It seemed to be sufficient for
Heaven that for a while in Peru a disinterested love had flowered and
faded. She leaned her forehead upon her hand, following the long tender
curve that the soprano lifts in the Kyrie. "My affection should have had
more of that colour, Pepita. My whole life should have had more of that
quality. I have been too busy," she added ruefully and her mind drifted
into prayer.
Camila had started from the farm to attend the service. Her heart was
filled with consternation and amazement. Here was another comment from
the skies; that was the third time she had been spoken to. Her
small-pox, Jaime's illness, and now the fall of the bridge,--oh, these
were not accidents. She was as ashamed as though letters had appeared on
her forehead. An order from the Palace announced that the Viceroy was
sending her two daughters to a convent-school in Spain. That was right.
She was alone. She gathered a few things together mechanically and
started to the city for the Service. But she fell to thinking of the
crowds gaping over her Uncle Pio and over her son; she thought of the
vast ritual of the church, like a chasm into which the beloved falls,
and of the storm of the _dies irae_ where the individual is lost among
the millions of the dead, features grow dim and traits fade. At a little
more than half the journey, at the mud church of San Luis Rey she
slipped in and knelt against a pillar to rest. She wandered through her
memory, searching for the faces of her two. She waited for some emotion
to appear. "But I feel nothing," she whispered to herself. "I have no
heart. I am a poor meaningless woman, that's all. I am shut out. I have
no heart. Look, I won't try and think of anything; let me just rest
here." And scarcely had she paused when again that terrible
incommunicable pain swept through her, the pain that could not speak
once to Uncle Pio and tell him of her love and just once offer her
courage to Jaime in his sufferings. She started up wildly: "I fail
everybody," she cried. "They love me and I fail them." She returned to
the farm and carried for a year the mood of her self-despair. One day
she heard by accident that the wonderful Abbess had lost two persons
whom she loved in the same accident. Her sewing fell from her hand: then
she would know, she would explain. "But no, what would she say to me!
She would not even believe that such a person as I could love or could
lose." Camila decided to go to Lima and look at the Abbess from a
distance. "If her face tells me that she would not despise me, I will
speak to her," she said.
Camila lurked about the convent church and fell humbly in love with the
homely old face, though it frightened her a little. At last she called
upon her.
"Mother," she said, "I ... I ..."
"Do I know you, my daughter?"
"I was the actress, I was the Perichole."
"Oh, yes. Oh, I have wished to know you for a long while, but they told
me you did not wish to be seen. You too, I know, lost in the fall of the
bridge of San...."
Camila rose and swayed. There! again that access of pain, the hands of
the dead she could not reach. Her lips were white. Her head brushed the
Abbess's knee: "Mother, what shall I do? I am all alone. I have nothing
in the world. I love them. What shall I do?"
The Abbess looked at her closely. "My daughter, it is warm here. Let us
go into the garden. You can rest there." She made a sign to a girl in
the cloister to bring some water. She continued talking mechanically to
Camila. "I have wished to know you for a long while, señora. Even
before the accident I had wished much to know you. They told me that in
the _autos sacrementales_ you were a very great and beautiful actress,
in _Belshazzar's Feast_."
"Oh, Mother, you must not say that. I am a sinner. You must not say
that."
"Here, drink this, my child. We have a beautiful garden, do you not
think so? You will come and see us often and some day you will meet
Sister Juana who is our gardener-in-chief. Before she entered religion
she had almost never seen a garden, for she worked in the mines high up
in the mountains. Now everything grows under her hand.--A year has gone
by, señora, since our accident. I lost two who had been children in my
orphanage, but you lost a real child of your own?"
"Yes, Mother."
"And a great friend?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Tell me...."
And then the whole tide of Camila's long despair, her lonely obstinate
despair since her girlhood, found its rest on that dusty friendly lap
among Sister Juana's fountains and roses.
* * * * * * *
But where are sufficient books to contain the events that would not have
been the same without the fall of the bridge? From such a number I
choose one more.
"The Condesa d'Abuirre wishes to see you," said a lay-sister at the door
of the Abbess's office.
"Well," said the Abbess, laying down her pen, "who is she?"
"She has just come from Spain. I don't know."
"Oh, it is some money, Inez, some money for my house for the blind.
Quick, bid her come in."
The tall, rather languorous beauty entered the room. Doña Clara, who was
generally so adequate, seemed constrained for once. "Are you busy, dear
Mother, may I talk to you for a while?"
"I am quite free, my daughter. You will excuse an old woman's memory;
have I known you before?"
"My mother was the Marquesa de Montemayor...." Doña Clara suspected
that the Abbess had not admired her mother and would not let the older
woman speak until she herself had made a long passionate defense of
Doña María. The languor fell away in her self-reproach. At last the
Abbess told her of Pepita and Esteban, and of Camila's visit. "All, all
of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume
all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love--I
scarcely dare say it--but in love our very mistakes don't seem to be
able to last long?"
The Condesa showed the Abbess Doña María's last letter. Madre María
dared not say aloud how great her astonishment was that such words
(words that since then the whole world has murmured over with joy) could
spring in the heart of Pepita's mistress. "Now learn," she commanded
herself, "learn at last that anywhere you may expect grace." And she was
filled with happiness like a girl at this new proof that the traits she
lived for were everywhere, that the world was ready. "Will you do me a
kindness, my daughter? Will you let me show you my work?"
The sun had gone down, but the Abbess led the way with a lantern down
corridor after corridor. Doña Clara saw the old and the young, the sick
and the blind, but most of all she saw the tired, bright old woman who
was leading her. The Abbess would stop in a passageway and say suddenly:
"I can't help thinking that something could be done for the
deaf-and-dumb. It seems to me that some patient person could, ... could
study out a language for them. You know there are hundreds and hundreds
in Peru. Do you remember whether anyone in Spain has found a way for
them? Well, some day they will." Or a little later: "Do you know, I keep
thinking that something can be done for the insane. I am old, you know,
and I cannot go where these things are talked about, but I watch them
sometimes and it seems to me ... In Spain, now, they are gentle with
them? It seems to me that there is a secret about it, just hidden from
us, just around the corner. Some day back in Spain, if you hear of
anything that would help us, you will write me a letter ... if you are
not too busy?"
At last after Doña Clara had seen even the kitchens, the Abbess said:
"Now will you excuse me, for I must go into the room of the very sick
and say a few words for them to think about when they cannot sleep. I
will not ask you to come with me there, for you are not accustomed to
such ... such sounds and things. And besides I only talk to them as one
talks to children." She looked up at her with her modest rueful smile.
Suddenly she disappeared a moment to return with one of her helpers, one
who had likewise been involved in the affair of the bridge and who had
formerly been an actress. "She is leaving me," said the Abbess, "for
some work across the city and when I have spoken here I must leave you
both, for the flour-broker will not wait for me any longer, and our
argument will take a long time."
But Doña Clara stood in the door as the Abbess talked to them, the lamp
placed on the floor beside her. Madre María stood with her back against
a post; the sick lay in rows gazing at the ceiling and trying to hold
their breaths. She talked that night of all those out in the dark (she
was thinking of Esteban alone, she was thinking of Pepita alone) who had
no one to turn to, for whom the world perhaps was more than difficult,
without meaning. And those who lay in their beds there felt that they
were within a wall that the Abbess had built for them; within all was
light and warmth, and without was the darkness they would not exchange
even for a relief from pain and from dying. But even while she was
talking, other thoughts were passing in the back of her mind. "Even
now," she thought, "almost no one remembers Esteban and Pepita, but
myself. Camila alone remembers her Uncle Pio and her son; this woman,
her mother. But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have
left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and
forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of
love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for
love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the
bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."