heresy, that could have been proposed, would have shocked him half
so much as the supposition that one Castilian gentleman could be
uncourteous to another, upon any account. "Do me the favour to state
your opinions, señor," he responded, with a bow, "and I will honour
myself by giving them my best attention."
Carlos was little used to language such as this. It induced him to
speak his mind more freely than he had been able to do for the last two
years. But, mindful of his experience with old Father Bernardo at San
Isodro, he did not speak of doctrines, he spoke of a Person. In words
simple enough for a child to understand, but with a heart glowing with
faith and love, he told of what He was when he walked on earth, of what
He is at the right hand of the Father, of what He has done and is doing
still for every soul that trusts him.
Certainly the faded eye brightened; and something like a look of
interest began to dawn in the mournfully still and passive countenance.
For a time Carlos was aware that his listener followed every word, and
he spoke slowly, on purpose to allow him so to do. But then there came
a change. The _listening_ look passed out of the eyes; and yet they did
not wander once from the speaker's face. The expression of the whole
countenance was gradually altered, from one of rather painful attention
to the dreamy look of a man who hears sweet music, and gives free
course to the emotions it is calculated to awaken. In truth, the voice
of Carlos _was_ sweet music in his fellow-captive's ear; and he would
willingly have sat thus for ever, gazing at him and enjoying it.
Carlos thought that if this was their reverences' idea of "a
satisfactory penitent," they were not difficult to satisfy. And he
marvelled increasingly that so astute a man as the Dominican prior
should have put the task of his conversion into such hands. For the
piety so lauded in the penitent appeared to him mere passiveness--the
submission of a soul out of which all resisting forces had been
crushed. "It is only life that resists," he thought; "the dead they can
move whithersoever they will."
Intolerance always sets a premium on mental stagnation. Nay, it
actually produces it; it "makes a desert, and calls it peace." And what
the Inquisition did for the penitent, that it has done also for the
penitent's fair fatherland. Was the resurrection of dead and buried
faculties possible for _him_? Is such a resurrection possible for _it_?
And yet, in spite of the deadness of heart and brain, which he doubted
not was the result of cruel suffering, Carlos loved his fellow-prisoner
every hour more and more. He could not tell why; he only knew that "his
soul was knit" to his.
When Carlos, for fear of fatiguing him, brought his explanations to a
close, both relapsed into silence; and the remainder of the day passed
without much further conversation, but with a constant interchange of
little kindnesses and courtesies. The first sight that greeted the eyes
of Carlos when he awoke the next morning, was that of the penitent
kneeling before the pictured Madonna, his lips motionless, his hands
crossed on his breast, and his face far more earnest with feeling--it
might be thought with devotion--than he had ever seen it yet.
Carlos was moved, but saddened. It grieved him sore that his aged
fellow-prisoner should pour out the last costly libation of love and
trust left in his desolated heart before the shrine of that which was
no god. And a great longing awoke within him to lead back this weary
and heavy-laden one to the only Being who could give him true rest.
"If, indeed, he is one of God's chosen, of his loved and redeemed ones,
he will be led back," thought Carlos, who had spent the past two years
in thinking out many things for himself. Certain aspects of truth,
which may be either strong cordials or rank poisons, as they are used,
had grown gradually clear to him. Opposed to the Dominican prior upon
most subjects, he was at one with him upon that of predestination. For
he had need to be assured, when the great water floods prevailed, that
the chain which kept him from drifting away with them was a strong
one. And therefore he had followed it up, link by link, until he came
at last to that eternal purpose of God in which it was fast anchored.
Since the day that he first learned it, he had lived in the light of
that great centre truth, "I have loved thee"--_thee_ individually.
But as he lay in the gloomy prison, sentenced to die, something more
was revealed to him. "I have loved thee _with an everlasting love,
therefore_ with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." The value of this
truth, to him as to others, lay in the double aspect of that word
"everlasting;" its look forward to the boundless future, as well as
backward on the mysterious past. The one was a pledge and assurance of
the other. And now he was taking to his heart the comfort it gave,
for the penitent as well as for himself. But it made him, not less,
but more anxious to be God's fellow-worker in bringing him back to the
truth.
In the meantime, however, he was quite mistaken as to the feelings
with which the old man knelt before the pictured Virgin and Child. His
heart was stirred by no mystic devotion to the Queen of Heaven, but by
some very human feelings, which had long lain dormant, but which were
now being gradually awakened there. He was thinking not of heaven,
but of earth, and of "earth's warm beating joy and dole." And what
attracted him to that spot was only the representation of womanhood and
childhood, recalling, though far off and faintly, the fair young wife
and babe from whom he had been cruelly torn years and years ago.
A little later, as the two prisoners sat over the bread and fruit that
formed their morning meal, the penitent began to speak more frankly
than he had done before. "I was quite afraid of you, señor, when you
first came," he said.
"And perhaps I was not guiltless of the same feeling towards you,"
Carlos answered. "It is no marvel. Companions in sorrow, such as we
are, have great power either to help or to hurt one another."
"You may truly say that," returned the penitent. "In fact, I once
suffered so cruelly from the treachery of a fellow-prisoner, that it is
not unnatural I should be suspicious."
"How was that, señor?"
"It was very long ago, soon after my arrest. And yet, not soon. For
weary months of darkness and solitude, I cannot tell how many, I held
out--I mean to say, I continued impenitent."
"Did you?" asked Carlos with interest. "I thought as much."
"Do not think ill of me, I entreat of you, señor," said the penitent
anxiously. "I am _reconciled_. I have returned to the bosom of the
true Church, and I belong to her. I have confessed and received
absolution. I have even had the Holy Sacrament; and if ill, or in
danger of death, it is promised I shall receive 'su majestad'[33] at
any time. And I have abjured and detested all the heresies I learned
from De Valero."
[33] "His Majesty," the ordinary term applied by Spaniards to the
Host.
"From De Valero! Did you learn from him?" The pale cheek of Carlos
crimsoned for a moment, then grew paler than before. "Tell me, señor,
if I may ask it, how long have you been here?"
"That is just what I cannot tell. The first year stands out clearly;
but all the after years are like a dream to me. It was in that first
year that the caitiff I spoke of anon, who was imprisoned with me--you
observe, señor, I had already asked for reconciliation. It was promised
me. I was to perform penance; to be forgiven; to have my freedom.
_Pues_, señor, I spoke to that man as I might to you, freely and from
my heart. For I supposed him a gentleman. I dared to say that their
reverences had dealt somewhat hardly with me, and the like. Idle words,
no doubt--idle and wicked. God knows, I have had time enough to repent
them since. For that man, my fellow-prisoner, he who knew what prison
was, went forth straightway and delated me to the Lords Inquisitors for
those idle words--God in heaven forgive him! And thus the door was shut
upon me--shut--shut for ever. Ay de mi! Ay de mi!"
Carlos heard but little of this speech. He was gazing at him with
eager, kindling eyes. "Were there left behind in the world any that it
wrung your heart to part from?" he asked, in a trembling voice.
"There were. And since you came, their looks have never ceased to
haunt me. Why, I know not. My wife, my child!" And the old man shaded
his face, while in his eyes, long unused to tears, there rose a mist,
like the cloud in form as a man's hand, that foretold the approach of
the beneficent rain, which should refresh and soften the thirsty soil,
making all things young again.
"Señor," said Carlos, trying to speak calmly, and to keep down the
wild tumultuous throbbing of his heart--"señor, a boon, I entreat of
you. Tell me the name you bore amongst men. It was a noble one, I know."
"True. They promised to save it from disgrace. But it was part of my
penance not to utter it; if possible, to forget it."
"Yet, this once. I do not ask idly--this once--have pity on me, and
speak it," pleaded Carlos, with intense tremulous earnestness.
"Your face and your voice move me strangely; it seems to me that I
could not deny you anything. I am--I ought to say, I _was_--Don Juan
Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya."
Before the sentence was concluded, Carlos lay senseless at his feet.
XLII.
Quiet Days.
"I think that by-and-by all things
Which were perplexed a while ago
And life's long, vain conjecturings,
Will simple, calm, and quiet grow.
Already round about me, some
August and solemn sunset seems
Deep sleeping in a dewy dome,
And bending o'er a world of dreams."
OWEN MEREDITH.
The penitent laid Carlos gently on his pallet (he still possessed a
measure of physical strength, and the worn frame was easy to lift);
then he knocked loudly on the door for help, as he had been instructed
to do in any case of need. But no one heard, or at least no one heeded
him, which was not remarkable, since during more than twenty years he
had not, on a single occasion, thus summoned his gaolers. Then, in
utter ignorance what next to do, and in very great distress, he bent
over his young companion, helplessly wringing his hands.
Carlos stirred at last, and murmured, "Where am I? What is it?" But
even before full consciousness returned, there came the sense, taught
by the bitter experience of the last two years, that he must look
within for aid--he could expect none from any fellow-creature. He tried
to recollect himself. Some bewildering, awful joy had fallen upon him,
striking him to the earth. Was he free? Was he permitted to see Juan?
Slowly, very slowly, all grew clear to him. He half raised himself,
grasped the penitent's hand, and cried aloud, "_My father!_"
"Are you better, señor?" asked the old man with solicitude. "Do me the
favour to drink this wine."
"Father, my father! I am your son. I am Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y
Meñaya. Do you not understand me, father?"
"I do not understand you, señor," said the penitent, moving a little
away from him, with a mixture of dignified courtesy and utter amazement
in his manner strange to behold. "Who is it that I have the honour to
address?"
"O my father, I am your son--your very son Carlos."
"I have never seen you till--ere yesterday."
"That is quite true; and yet--"
"Nay, nay," interrupted the old man; "you are speaking wild words to
me. I had but one boy--Juan--Juan Rodrigo. The heir of the house of
Alvarez de Meñaya was always called Juan."
"He lives. He is Captain Don Juan now, the bravest soldier, and the
best, truest-hearted man on earth. How you would love him! Would you
could see him face to face! Yet no; thank God you cannot."
"My babe a captain in His Imperial Majesty's army!" said Don Juan, in
whose thoughts the great Emperor was reigning still.
"And I," Carlos continued, in a broken, agitated voice--"I, born when
they thought you dead--I, who opened my young eyes on this sad world
the day God took my mother home from all its sin and sorrow--I am
brought here, in his mysterious providence, to comfort you, after your
long dreary years of suffering."
"Your mother! Did you say your mother? My wife, _Costanza mia_. Oh, let
me see your face!"
Carlos raised himself to a kneeling attitude, and the old man laid his
hand on his shoulder, and gazed at him long and earnestly. At length
Carlos removed the hand, and drawing it gently upwards, placed it on
his head. "Father," he said, "you will love your son? you will bless
him, will you not? He has dwelt long amongst those who hated him, and
never spoke to him save in wrath and scorn, and his heart pines for
human love and tenderness."
Don Juan did not answer for a while; but he ran his fingers through
the soft fine hair. "So like hers," he murmured dreamily. "Thine eyes
are hers too--_zarca_.[34] Yes, yes; I do bless thee--But who am I to
bless? God bless thee, my son!"
[34] Blue; a word applied by the Spaniards only to blue eyes.
In the long, long silence that followed, the great convent bell rang
out. It was noon. For the first time for twenty years the penitent did
not hear that sound.
Carlos heard it, however. Agitated as he was, he yet feared the
consequences that might follow should the penitent omit any part of the
penance he was bound by oath to perform. So he gently reminded him of
it. "Father--(how strangely sweet the name sounded!)--"father, at this
hour you always recite the penitential psalms. When you have finished,
we will talk together. I have ten thousand things to tell you."
With the silent, unreasoning submission that had become a part of his
nature, the penitent obeyed; and, going to his usual station before the
crucifix, began his monotonous task. The fresh life newly awakened in
his heart and brain was far from being strong enough, as yet, to burst
the bonds of habit. And this was well. Those bonds were his safeguard;
but for their wholesome restraint, mind or body, or both, might have
been shattered by the tumultuous rush of new thoughts and feelings.
But the familiar Latin words, repeated without thought, almost without
consciousness, soothed the weary brain like a slumber.
Meanwhile, Carlos thanked God with a full heart. Here, then--_here_,
in the dark prison, the very abode of misery--had God given him the
desire of his heart, fulfilled the longing of his early years. Now the
wilderness and the solitary place were glad; the desert rejoiced and
blossomed as the rose. Now his life seemed complete, its end answering
its beginning; all its meaning lying clear and plain before him. He was
satisfied.
"Ruy, Ruy, I have found our father!--Oh, that I could but tell thee,
my Ruy!"--was the cry of his heart, though he forced his lips to
silence. Nor could the tears of joy, that sprang unbidden to his eyes,
be permitted to overflow, since they might perplex and trouble his
fellow-captive--_his father_.
He had still a task to perform; and to that task his mind soon bent
itself; perhaps instinctively taking refuge in practical detail from
emotions that might otherwise have proved too strong for his weakened
frame. He set himself to consider how best he could revive the past,
and make the present comprehensible to the aged and broken man, without
overpowering or bewildering him.
He planned to tell him, in the first instance, all that he could about
Nuera. And this he accomplished gradually, as he was able to bear the
strain of conversation. He talked of Dolores and Diego; described both
the exterior and interior of the castle; in fact, made him see again
the scenes to which his eye had been accustomed in past days. With
special minuteness did he picture the little room within the hall, both
because it was less changed since his father's time than the others,
and because it had been his favourite apartment. "And on the window,"
he said, "there were some words, written with a diamond, doubtless
by your hand, my father. My brother and I used to read them in our
childhood; we loved them, and dreamed many a wondrous dream about
them. Do you not remember them?"
But the old man shook his head.
Then Carlos began,--
"'El Dorado--'"
"'Yo hé trovado.'
Yes, I remember now," said Don Juan promptly.
"And the golden country you had discovered--was it not the truth as
revealed in Scripture?" asked Carlos, perhaps a little too eagerly.
The penitent mused a space; grew bewildered; said at last sorrowfully,
"I know not. I cannot now recall what moved me to write those lines, or
even when I wrote them."
In the next place, Carlos ventured to tell all he had heard from
Dolores about his mother. The fact of his wife's death had been
communicated to the prisoner; but this was the only fragment of
intelligence about his family that had reached him during all these
years. When she was spoken of, he showed emotion, slight in the
beginning, but increasing at every succeeding mention of her name,
until Carlos, who had at first been glad to find that the slumbering
chords of feeling responded to his touch, came at last to dread laying
his hands upon them, they were apt to moan so piteously. And once and
again did his father say, gazing at him with ever-increasing fondness,
"Thy face is hers, risen anew before me."
Carlos tried hard to awaken Don Juan's interest in his first-born. It
is true that he cherished an almost passionate love for Juanito the
babe, but it was such a love as we feel for children whom God has taken
to himself in infancy. Juan the youth, Juan the man, seemed to him a
stranger, difficult to conceive of or to care about. Yet, in time,
Carlos did succeed in establishing a bond between the long-imprisoned
father and the brave, noble, free-hearted son, who was so like what
that father had been in his early manhood. He was never weary of
telling of Juan's courage, Juan's truthfulness, Juan's generosity;
often concluding with the words, "_He_ would have been your favourite
son, had you known him, my father."
As time wore on, he won from his father's lips the principal facts of
his own story. His past was like a picture from which the colouring,
once bright and varied, has faded away, leaving only the bare outlines
of fact, and here and there the shadows of pain still faintly visible.
What he remembered, that he told his son; but gradually, and often in
very disjointed fragments, which Carlos carefully pieced together in
his thoughts, until he formed out of them a tolerably connected whole.
Just three-and-twenty years before, on his arrival in Seville, in
obedience to what he believed to be a summons from the Emperor, the
Conde de Nuera had been arrested and thrown into the secret dungeons
of the Inquisition. He well knew his offence: he had been the friend
and associate of De Valero; he had read and studied the Scriptures; he
had even advocated, in the presence of several witnesses, the doctrine
of justification by faith alone. Nor was he unprepared to pay the
terrible penalty. Had he, at the time of his arrest, been led at once
to the rack or the stake, it is probable he would have suffered with
a constancy that might have placed his name beside that of the most
heroic martyrs.
But he was allowed to wear out long months in suspense and solitude,
and in what his eager spirit found even harder to bear, absolute
inaction. Excitement, motion, stirring occupation for mind and body,
had all his life been a necessity to him. In the absence of these he
pined--grew melancholy, listless, morbid. His faith was genuine, and
would have been strong enough to enable him for anything _in the line
of his character_; but it failed under trials purposely and sedulously
contrived to assail that character through its weak points.
When already worn out with dreary imprisonment, he was beset by
arguments, clever, ingenious, sophistical, framed by men who made
argument the business of their lives. Thus attacked, he was like a
brave but unskilful man fencing with adepts in the noble science. He
_knew_ he was right; and with the Vulgate in his hand, he thought he
could have proved it. But they assured him they proved the contrary;
nor could he detect a flaw in their syllogisms when he came to
examine them. If not convinced, then surely he ought to have been.
They conjured him not to let pride and vain-glory seduce him into
self-opinionated obstinacy, but to submit his private judgment to that
of the Holy Catholic Church. And they promised that he should go forth
free, only chastised by a suitable and not disgraceful penance, and by
a pecuniary fine.
The hope of freedom burned in his heart like fire; and by this time
there was sufficient confusion in his brain for his will to find
arguments there against the voice of his conscience. So he yielded,
though not without conflict, fierce and bitter. His retractation was
drawn up in as mild a form as possible by the Inquisitors, and duly
signed by him. No public act of penance was required, as strict secrecy
was to be observed in the whole transaction.
But the Inquisitor-General, Valdez, felt a well-grounded distrust of
the penitent's sincerity, which was quickened perhaps by a desire
to appropriate to the use of the Holy Office a larger share of his
possessions than the moderate fine alluded to. Probably, too, he
dreaded the disclosures that might have followed had the Count been
restored to the world. He had recourse, therefore, to an artifice
often employed by the Inquisitors, and seriously recommended by their
standard authorities. The "fly" (for such traitors were common enough
to have a technical name as well as a recognized existence) reported
that the Conde de Nuera railed at the Holy Office, blasphemed the
Catholic faith, and still adhered in his heart to all his abominable
heresies. The result was a sentence of perpetual imprisonment.
Don Juan's condition was truly pitiable then. Like Samson, he was
shorn of the locks in which his strength lay, bound hand and foot, and
delivered over to his enemies. Because he could not bear perpetual
imprisonment he had renounced his faith, and denied his Lord. And now,
without the faith he had renounced, without the Lord he had denied,
he _must_ bear it. It told upon him as it would have told on nine men
out of ten, perhaps on ninety-nine out of a hundred. His mind lost its
activity, its vigour, its tone. It became, in time, almost a passive
instrument in the hands of others.
And then the Dominican monk, Fray Ricardo, brought his powerful
intellect and his strong will to bear upon him. He had been sent by
his superiors (he was not prior until long afterwards) to impart
the terrible story of her husband's arrest to the Lady of Nuera,
with secret instructions to ascertain whether her own faith had been
tampered with. In his fanatical zeal he performed a cruel task cruelly.
But he had a conscience, and its fault was not insensibility. When he
heard the tale of the lady's death, a few days after his visit, he was
profoundly affected. Accustomed, however, to a religion of weights and
balances, it came naturally to him to set one thing against another, by
way of making the scales even. If he could be the means of saving the
husband's soul, he would feel, to say the least, much more comfortable
about his conduct to the wife.
He spared no pains upon the task he had set himself; and a measure
of success crowned his efforts. Having first reduced the mind of the
penitent to a cold, blank calm, agitated by no wave of restless thought
or feeling, he had at length the delight of seeing his own image
reflected there, as in a mirror. He mistook that spectral reflection
for a reality, and great was his triumph when, day by day, he saw it
move responsive to every motion of his own.
But the arrest of his penitent's son broke in upon his
self-satisfaction. It seemed as though a dark doom hung over the
family, which even the father's repentance was powerless to avert. He
wished to save the youth, and he had tried to do it after his fashion;
but his efforts only resulted in bringing up before him the pale
accusing face of the Lady of Nuera, and in interesting him more than
he cared to acknowledge in the impenitent heretic, who seemed to him
such a strange mixture of gentleness and obstinacy. Surely the father's
influence would prevail with the son, originally a much less courageous
and determined character, and now already wrought upon by a long period
of loneliness and suffering.