The Shadow of the Cathedral

This God of Gabriel's having lost the corporeal form given to Him by religion, and as divulged in the history of the creation, lost at once all His attributes, and being magnified to fill the infinite and being absorbed into it, became so impalpable and subtle to the intellect as to appear a phantasm.

Nothing remained to Gabriel of all his ancient beliefs. His mind was like a bare field over which the whirlwind had passed, for his last belief, which had remained standing like a monolith in the midst of ruins, the belief in the history of creation, had now fallen.

But it was impossible to the former seminarist to remain inactive with his cargo of new ideas. He felt obliged to believe in something, to devote to the defence of some ideal all the faith in his character, to make some use of that fervour of proselytising which had been so much admired in the class of eloquence in the seminary, and so revolutionary sociology took possession of him. First of all it was Proudhon with his audacious writings, and afterwards the work was completed by some "militantes" who were working in the same printing office as himself—old soldiers of the Commune, who had lately returned from their exile in the prisons of Oceania, and were renewing their campaign against social organisation with an ardour increased tenfold by their painful sufferings and their desire of vengeance. With them he went to the anarchist meetings; there he heard Reclus and Prince Kropotkine, and the words of the since deceased Miquel Bakronhine came to him as the gospel of a Saint Paul of the future.

Gabriel had met with his new religion, and he gave himself over to it entirely, dreaming of the regeneration of humanity through its stomach. Believing in a future life, misfortunes gave the false consolation of happiness after death; but all religion was a lie, there was no other life but that of the present, and Luna rose in anger against the social injustice that condemned millions of beings to poverty and misery for the happiness of a few privileged thousands. Authority, which was the fount of all evil, was to him the greatest enemy; it must be destroyed, but men must be created who were capable of living without masters, priests or soldiers. The natural gentleness of his character, and the horror of violence with which his three years' campaigning had filled him, caused him rather to draw back from his new companions, who, dreaming of hecatombs from dynamite and the dagger to reform the world, obliged him to accept these new doctrines through fear. No; he believed in the strength of the "idea," and in the innocent evolution of humanity; he had only to work like the first apostles of Christianity certain of the future, but without hurrying, to see his ideas realised; he had only to fix his eyes on the day's work, without thinking of the long years and centuries before it would bear its fruit.

The ardour of his proselytising made him leave Paris at the end of five years. He was anxious to see the world, to study for himself all these social miseries, so as to judge what forces these disinherited could command for their great transformation. Besides, he began to find himself incommoded by the vigilance of the French police, on account of his intimacy with the Russian students of the Quartier Latin—young men with cold eyes and limp and dishevelled hair who were endeavouring to implant in Paris the vengeances of Nihilism. In London he came to know a young Englishwoman of weak health, but burning like himself with all the ardour of revolutionary propaganda, who would walk from morning till night in the lanes and surroundings of workshops and laboratories, distributing pamphlets and printed leaflets that she kept in a band-box that was always hanging on her arm. In a short time Lucy became Gabriel's companion; they loved each other without excitement, with a cold and quiet passion, more from community of ideas than anything else, for the love of revolutionists, dominated with the thought of rebellion against everything existing, has not much room for any other feeling.

Luna and his companion went to Holland and thence to Belgium, settling afterwards in Germany, always travelling from group to group of "companions," taking up different work with that facility of adaptation which seems universal among revolutionaries, who wander over the world penniless, enduring every sort of privation, but finding always in their difficulties some brotherly hand to raise them and set them again on the path.

After eight years of this life Gabriel's friend died of consumption. They were then in Italy, and Luna, finding himself alone, understood for the first time how much support the gentle companion of his life had given him. In his sorrow for the loss of Lucy he forgot for a while his revolutionary enthusiasm, lamenting only the void left in his life. He had not loved her as most men love, but she was his companion, his sister, they were alike in their pleasures and their sorrows, and their common poverty had welded them into one will. Moreover, Gabriel felt himself aged before his time by this life of soul-stirring adventures and painful privations. He had been imprisoned in many places in Europe, being suspected of complicity with the terrorists, he had often been beaten by the police, and he began to find a difficulty in travelling about the Continent, as his photograph figured with that of several other "companions" in the central police offices of the principal nations. He was a vagabond and dangerous dog, who would end by being kicked out of every place.

Gabriel could not live alone; he was accustomed to see those kind blue eyes near him, and to hear the caressing voice with its bird-like inflexions which had so much encouraged him in times of trial and difficulty, and he could not endure the solitude in a strange land after Lucy's death. A great longing for his native land awoke in him, he wished to return to Spain, to that land he had so often ridiculed, and which now in spite of its backwardness seemed to him so attractive. He thought of his brothers, fixed like plants to the stones of the Cathedral, never interesting themselves with what took place in the world, never seeking for news of him, as though they had entirely forgotten him.

With a sudden impulse, as though he were afraid of dying away from his native land, he returned to Spain. In Barcelona some of the "companions" had obtained for him the management of a printing press, but before taking up his post he wished to spend a few days in Toledo. He returned an old man, though he was barely forty, speaking four or five languages, and poorer than when he had left it. He found that his brother the gardener had died, and that the widow and her son had taken refuge in a garret in the Claverias, where she supported herself by washing the canon's linen. Esteban, the "Wooden Staff," received him with the same admiration he had felt for him while in the seminary. He talked a great deal about his travels, gathering together all the people in the upper cloister, so that they should listen to this man who had travelled all over the world, just as though he were going about his own house. In their inquiries they painfully entangled geography, as they could only comprehend two divisions in it, the countries of heretics, and the countries of Christians.

Gabriel pitied the great poverty of these people, and admired the humbleness of these Cathedral servants, content to live and die in the same place, without any curiosity as to what was taking place outside the walls. The church seemed to him a huge derelict. It was like the petrified skeleton of one of those immense and powerful animals of former days, that had been dead for ages, its body decayed, its soul evaporated, and nothing left but this framework, like to the shells found by geologists in prehistoric strata by whose structure they can guess at the soft parts of the vanished being. Seeing the ceremonies of worship which in former days had so moved him, he felt roused to protest, a longing to shout to the priests and acolytes to stop, and withdraw, as their times were passed, and faith was dead, and it was only from routine and the fear of outside opinion that people now frequented these places, which formerly religious fervour had filled from morning till night.

On his arrival in Barcelona Gabriel's life was a whirlwind of proselytising, of struggles, and of persecutions. The "companions" respected him, seeing in him the friend of all the great propagandists of "the idea," and one who might himself rank among the most famous revolutionists. No meeting could be held without the "companion" Luna; that natural eloquence which had caused such wonder on his entry into the seminary, bubbled up and spread like an intoxicating gas in these revolutionary assemblies, firing that ragged, hungry, and miserable crowd, making them tremble with emotion at the description of future societies set forth by the apostle, that celestial city of the dreamers of all ages, without property, without vices, without inequalities, where work would become a pleasure, and where there would be no other worship but that of science and art. Some of his hearers, the darker spirits, would smile with a compassionate gesture, listening to his maledictions against authority, and his hymns to the sweetness and triumph to be won by passive resistance. He was an idealist, one to whom they must listen because he had served the cause well; they who were the strong men, the fighters, knew well enough how to crush in silence that cursed society if it should show itself deaf to the voice of Truth.

When they exploded bombs in the streets the "companion" Luna was the first to be surprised at the catastrophe, he was also the first to be taken to prison on account of the popularity of his name. Oh! those two years passed in the castle of Montjuich! They had ploughed a deep furrow in Gabriel's memory, a deep wound that could not heal, that made him tremble at the slightest remembrance, disturbing his calm, and making him hot and cold with terror.

The madness of fear had taken possession of society, and all laws and regard to humanity, were trampled under foot to defend it. The justice of former ages, with its violent procedure was resuscitated in full civilisation. The judge was distrusted as being too cultured and scrupulous, and a free hand was given to the petty officers of justice, ordering them to introduce afresh all the old instruments of torture.

In the darkness of the night Gabriel saw his Moorish dungeon lighted up; some men in uniform seized him and dragged him down the staircase to a room where others were waiting with huge cudgels. A young man with a soft voice, in the uniform of a lieutenant, and with the lazy manners of a Creole, questioned him as to the various attempts that had occurred months before down in the town. Gabriel knew nothing, had seen nothing. But all the same these men were your companions; but he, having fixed his eyes on high, contemplating his visions of the future, had never realised that all around him this violence was surging and germinating. His reiterated negative rendered the men furious; the soft voice of the Creole became harsh with anger, and with menaces and blasphemies they all threw themselves upon him, and the cruel hunt of the man round and round the dungeon began, the cudgels falling on his body, beat his head or his legs indifferently, pursuing him into corners, following him as with a desperate bound he reached the opposite wall, opening the way with his bent head, his back resounding like an empty box beneath the blows. Now and then the desperation of pain inflamed the victim, the lamb turned into a wild beast, and before falling to the ground, cowering like a child before superior numbers, he would throw himself on the executioners, tearing them, and trying to bite them. Gabriel kept a button from the lieutenant's uniform which had remained in his fingers after one of these revolts of his weakness.

Afterwards, his tormentors, wearied by the inutility of their violence, left him forgotten in the dungeon. A loaf of bread and some bits of dry salt cod were his only food. Thirst, an infernal thirst, racked his bowels, contracted his throat, and burnt his mouth. At first he called piteously under the door for water, but afterwards he would beg no more, knowing beforehand what the answer would be. It was a calculated torture; they promised him as much water as he wished, after he should have disclosed the names of the guilty, confessing things of which he had no knowledge. Hunger strove in him against thirst, but fearing this latter most, he would throw this salted food into a corner as though it were poison. He was delirious with the delirium of a shipwrecked man tormented with visions of fresh water in the midst of the salt waves. In his nightmare he saw clear and murmuring brooks, great rivers; and seeking freshness for his mouth he would pass his tongue over the filthy walls, finding a certain alleviation in the lime of the whitewash.

The privations and the incarceration disturbed his mind with horrible ravings; often Gabriel was surprised at finding himself on all fours, growling and barking opposite the door without knowing how or why.

His tormentors seemed to forget him; they had other prisoners to look after. The jailors gave him water, but whole months passed without anyone entering his cell. Some nights he would hear vaguely and far off through the greasy walls wailing and sobs in the adjacent dungeons. One morning he was awoke by sounds as of thunder, in spite of a tiny ray of sunlight filtering through his loophole; hearing the jailors in the corridors near, he understood the mystery. They had been shooting some of the prisoners.

Luna received as a happiness this hope of death; he would renounce with pleasure that shadow of a life in a small stone box, tormented by physical pain and the fear of men's ferocity. His stomach, weakened by all these privations, refused for many days, with horrible nausea, to receive the bitter bread and the coppery mess. His want of exercise, the want of air, and the bad and scanty nourishment had made him fall into a mortal anaemia; he coughed continually, suffering great oppression on his chest. The knowledge he had acquired of the human body in his thirst for knowing everything did not admit of his being mistaken; he would die as poor Lucy had died.

After a year and a half of imprisonment he appeared before a council of war, mixed up with a mob of old men, women, and even quite young people, all weakened and broken by imprisonment, with their skin white and thick as chewed paper, and that dazed look in their eyes that comes from solitary confinement. Gabriel hoped he would be executed. When the fiscal came to the name of Luna on the long list he stopped an instant, shooting a ferocious glance at him—this man was among the theorists. It appeared from the declarations of witnesses that he took no direct part in the deeds of violence, and that in his speeches he had always deprecated them; still it must be remembered that he was one of the principal propagandists of anarchism, and that he had delivered speeches in all the workmen's societies frequented by the authors of the attempts.

An elderly captain bent towards another member of the council, speaking in his ear, but Gabriel caught his words:

"It is on these gentlemen who make speeches that we must lay our hand, so that they may be warned not to lecture any more on Tolstoi or Ibsen, or any of those foreign worthies who advocate throwing bombs."

Gabriel spent many months of solitary confinement in his prison. From words now and then dropped by his jailors he could guess at the fluctuations of his fate. Sometimes he would gather that he and all his companions in misfortune were to be sent to the jail in Africa, or again they would hint at his immediate liberation, or would prophesy that they were all to be shot en masse. When at the end of two years he left this gloomy castle, it was to be embarked with all his companions for exile. He was only the shadow of a man; his weakness made his walk as uncertain and tremulous as that of a child, but he forgot his own misery in trying to assist those of his companions who were even weaker than himself, and who bore the cruel scars of the torments they had endured.

The return to liberty recalled all his former gentleness and the philosophic pity with which he surrounded all men, pitying and pardoning their faults. On landing in England the more violent of his companions spoke of future vengeance on their persecutors, while Gabriel asked pardon for them, as blind instruments employed by society in a moment of terror, thinking they had saved it by their barbarity.

The climate of London aggravated Gabriel's illness, and in about two years he was obliged to move to the Continent, although England with its absolute liberty was the only land where he could have lived quietly and ignored.

His existence was a cruel one, always a fugitive through the different countries of Europe, driven from one place to another by the vigilance of the police, thrown into prison, or expelled on the slightest suspicion. It was a return to the ancient persecution of the gipsies, the constant hunting of independent people, leading vagabond lives, of the Middle Ages. His illness and his desire for rest and peace made him return to Spain. Time had produced a certain amount of tolerance towards the exiles, and in Spain everything is soon forgotten, and though the authorities are harder and less scrupulous than in other countries, still they interfere less on account of their improvidence and the carelessness natural to the race.

Sick and without any work by which he could earn his living, precluded from seeking work among the printers, as his name was encircled by a halo which terrified the masters, Gabriel fell into such extreme poverty that the little help and succour his companions could afford were unable to relieve it, and he travelled from end to end of the Peninsula begging from his fellows and hiding from the police.

His spirit was broken, he was conquered, and he had no longer strength to continue the struggle. Nothing remained for him but to die, but merciful death came slowly to his call. He thought of his brother, the only affection remaining to him in the world; he remembered the quiet family in the Claverias, of which he had caught a glimpse on his last visit to the Cathedral, and he turned to seek them as his last hope.

On his return to Toledo, he found the happy family dissolved; misfortune had come even to that silent and stagnant corner.

But the Cathedral, insensible to all human vicissitudes was there, the same as ever, and to it he clung, hiding himself in its recesses, hoping to die there in peace, with no other hope but to be forgotten; dying before his proper time, tasting the bitter happiness of annihilation, leaving behind him at the door, like an animal who sheds its skin, all that rebellion which had drawn upon him the hatred of society.

His happiness was not to think, not to speak, to mould himself to that dead world; he would be among the living statues peopling the upper cloister, one more automaton; he would imitate those beings who seemed to have absorbed into themselves something of the austerity of the granite buttresses, he would inhale like a healing balsam the scent of the rusty iron railings and the incense that spread through the church, the ancient perfume of the past centuries.