I
Gabriel Da Costa pricked his horse gently with the spur, and dashing
down the long avenue of cork-trees, strove to forget the torment of
spiritual problems in the fury of physical movement, to leave theology
behind with the monasteries and chapels of Porto. He rode with grace
and fire, this beautiful youth with the flashing eyes, and the dark
hair flowing down the silken doublet, whom a poet might have feigned
an image of the passionate spring of the South, but for whose own soul
the warm blue sky of Portugal, the white of the almond blossoms, the
pink of the peach sprays, the delicate odors of buds, and the glad
clamor of birds made only a vague background to a whirl of thoughts.
No; it was impossible to believe that by confessing his sins as the
Church prescribed he could obtain a plenary absolution. If salvation
was to be secured only by particular rules, why, then, one might
despair of salvation altogether. And, perhaps, eternal damnation was
indeed his destiny, were it only for his doubts, and in despite of
all his punctilious mechanical worship. Oh, for a deliverer--a
deliverer from the questionings that made the splendid gloom of
cathedrals a darkness for the captive spirit! Those cursed Jesuits,
zealous with the zealotry of a new order! His blood flamed as he
thought of their manoeuvrings, and putting his hand to his holster,
where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial,
he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing
himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though
a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and
changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead,
snapping it off.
Why had his dead father set him to study ecclesiastical law? True, for
a wealthy youth of the upper middle classes 'twas the one road to
distinction, to social equality with the nobility--and whose fault but
his own that even after the first stirrings of scepticism he had
accepted semi-sacerdotal office as chief treasurer of a clerical
college? But how should he foresee that these uneasinesses of youth
would be aggravated rather than appeased by deeper study, more
passionate devotion? Strange! All around him, in college or cathedral,
was faith and peace; in his spirit alone a secret disquiet and a
suppressed ferment that not all the soaring music of fresh-voiced boys
could soothe or allay.
He felt his horse slacken suddenly under him, and had used his spurs
viciously without effect, ere he became conscious that he had come to
the steep, clayey bank of a ravine through which a tiny stream
trickled, and that the animal's flanks were stained with blood.
Instantly his eyes grew humid.
"_Pobre!_" he cried, leaping from the saddle and caressing the
horse's nostrils. "To be shamed before men have I always dreaded, but
'tis worse to be shamed before myself."
And leading his steed by the bridle, the young cavalier turned back
towards Porto by winding grassy paths purpled with anemones and
bordered by gray olive-trees, with here and there the vivid gleam of
oranges peeping amid deep green foliage that tore the sky into a
thousand azure patches.