La Gaviota

Stein, whose ideas became clearer little by little, asked in Spanish:

“Where am I? who are you?”

“He,” replied the old woman, “is brother Gabriel; I am grandma Maria, and we are both at your orders.”

“Ah!” said Stein, “from whom do you take your names? The holy archangel and the holy Virgin, guardians of the sick and consolers of the afflicted, will recompense you for your good action.”

“He speaks Spanish!” cried Maria with emotion; “and he is a Christian! and he knows the litanies!”

In her access of joy, she approached Stein, pressed him in her arms and bravely kissed his forehead.

“Decidedly, who are you?” she said, after having made him take a bowl of soup. “How, ill and dying, have you reached this depopulated village?”

“I am called Stein, and I am a surgeon. I was in the war at Navarre. I came by Estremadura to seek a port whence I could embark for Cadiz, and then regain Germany, my country. I lost myself in my route: I made a thousand detours and finished by arriving here, worn out by fatigue and ready to give up the ghost.”

“You see,” said Maria to brother Gabriel, “that his books are not in the Hebrew language, but in the language of surgeons.”

“That’s true,” repeated brother Gabriel.

“And which party do you belong to?” asked the old woman. “Don Carlos, or the other?”

“I serve in the troops of the Queen,” replied Stein.

Maria turned towards her companion, and with an expressive gesture, said in a low voice:

“He is not with the good.”

“He was not with the good,” repeated brother Gabriel, in bowing his head.

“But where am I?” again demanded Stein.

“You are,” replied the old woman, “in a convent which is no longer a convent. It is a body without a soul. There remain but the walls, the white cross, and brother Gabriel. The others have taken away all the rest. When there was nothing more to take, some gentlemen whom they call the public credit searched for a good man to guard the convent – that is to say, its carcass. They heard my son spoken of, and we came and established ourselves here, where I live with my son, the only one who would remain. When we entered into the convent, the fathers went away. Some retired to America or rejoined the missions in China; some returned to their families; some demanded their subsistence or work, or had recourse to alms. We have with us a monk, borne down by age and grief, who, seated on the steps of the white cross, weeps sometimes for the absent brethren, sometimes for the convent which they have abandoned. ‘Will not your Reverence come here,’ a child but lately attached to the services of the chapel said to him. ‘Where would you that I go?’ he replied. ‘I will never go away from these walls, where I was, poor and an orphan, received by the good fathers. I know nobody in the world, and know nothing but how to take care of the garden of the convent. Where shall I go? What shall I do? I can live only here.’ ‘Then remain with us.’ ‘Well said, mother,’ replied my son; ‘we are seven seated at the same table; we will be eight, and, as the proverb says, We will eat more, and we will eat less.’ ”

“Thanks to this act of charity,” said Gabriel, “I remain here, I take charge of the garden; but since they have sold the large pump, I do not know how to water a foot of ground; the orange and lemon trees dry up under my feet.”

“Brother Gabriel,” continued the grandma, “will not quit these walls to which he is attached like the ivy; he also says, ‘Very well, there remain but the walls. The barbarians! They have proved this maxim: Destroy the nest, the birds will never come back again.’ ”

“Notwithstanding,” hazarded Stein, “I have heard said there are too many convents in Spain.”

Maria fixed her black sparkling eyes on the German, and said to herself in an undertone:

“Were our first suspicions well founded?”

CHAPTER IV

THE end of October had been rainy, and November sheltered herself under her thick green mantle.

Stein took a walk one day in front of the convent. A magnificent panorama presented itself to his sight: at the right, the limitless sea; at the left, solitude without end. Between them, on the horizon, was painted the black profile of the fort San Cristobal. The sea undulated softly, in raising without effort the waves gilded by the sun’s rays, like a queen who spreads out her gorgeous mantle.

Not far from thence was situated the village of Villamar, near a river as impetuous during winter, as calm and muddy during summer. The grounds around, well cultivated, presented the aspect of a chess-board, where each square revealed the thousand shades of green. Here shone the warm tints of the vine, then covered with leaves; there, the ash-colored green of the olive-tree; the emerald green of the fig-trees, which the rains of autumn had imparted growth to; further off still, the bluish-green hedges of aloes. At the mouth of the river were collected several fishermen’s boats.

Near the convent, upon a light hillock, stood a chapel; in front, a cross based on a block of masonry whitened with lime; behind this cross, a retreat of verdure: it was the cemetery. Stein went there to meditate upon the powerful magic of the works of nature, when he saw Momo leaving the farm and going towards the village. In perceiving Stein, Momo proposed to him to accompany him, and they both commenced their route. They arrived soon at the top of the hillock, near the cross and the chapel. This ascension, however short and easy, had taken away Stein’s strength, who was yet scarcely convalescent. He rested an instant; then he entered the chapel, whose walls were covered with “exvotos.” Among these exvotos there was one which singularly attracted by its strangeness. The front of the altar contracted itself towards the base in describing a curved line. Stein perceived there in the obscurity an object supported against the wall, and the form of which he could not distinguish. Fixing his earnest scrutiny on this object, he became assured it was a carbine. The size was such, and the weight must have been so great that it was incomprehensible how one single man could have the strength to place it in that position: it is but the reflection which is always inspired by the sight of the armor of the middle ages. The mouth of the carbine was so large that an orange could easily be introduced. The arm was broken, and the pieces were artistically put together by means of little cords.

“Momo,” said Stein, “what does this signify? Is it really a carbine?”

“In looking at it,” replied Momo, “it seems to me to be one.”

“But why do they place a murderous weapon in this holy and peaceful place? In truth, it is not sense to arm Christ with a pair of pistols.”

“But see, then,” replied Momo, “the carbine is not placed in the hands of our Lord; it is at his feet, as an offering. The day on which this carbine was brought here, they called this Christ, the Christ of Good Help.”

“And from what motive?” demanded Stein.

“For what motive!” said Momo in opening his eyes, “everybody knows that, and you know it not!”

“Have you forgotten that I am a stranger?” replied. Stein.

“That is true; I will tell you then: there was formerly in this country a highway robber who did not content himself with robbing, he murdered the people as if they were insects, whether from hatred, whether from fear of being denounced, or whether from caprice. One day two men of this village, two brothers, would undertake a journey. All their friends assembled to conduct them part of the way. There were abundance of good wishes that they might not encounter the bandit who gave quarter to no one, and who terrified everybody. But they, good children, commended themselves to Christ, and departed full of confidence in his protection. At the entrance of a wood of olives, they found themselves face to face with the robber, who came before them, with carbine in hand, rested his gun and aimed. In this extreme peril the two brothers fell on their knees, addressing themselves to Christ: ‘Help us, Lord!’ The bandit pulled the trigger, but whose soul was launched into another world? It was that of the robber: God caused the carbine to burst in the hands of the bandit. And you see now that, in memory of this miraculous assistance, they repaired the carbine with cords, and deposited it here, and it is the Christ who, since then, we implore help from. You knew nothing about it, Don Frederico?”

“Nothing, Momo,” he replied, in adding as if his own reflections: “If you know all that others are ignorant of, they who pretend know every thing.”

“Let us go! will you come?” said Momo after a moment’s silence. “You know I cannot wait.”

“I am fatigued,” replied Stein; “go along, I will wait for you here.”

“God protect you!” and Momo resumed his route, singing:

“God’s sweet protection be your lot,
Is the usual affiance.
Poor be ye rich! for science,
The rich can buy it not.”

Stein contemplated this little village, so tranquil, at once fishing, commercial, and laborious.

It was not like the villages of Germany, an assemblage of houses scattered without order, with their roofs of straw, and their gardens; they resembled in no way those of England, sheltered by the shades of their large trees; nor those of Flanders, which retired to the borders of the roads. It was composed of large streets, although badly made, where the houses, without separate stories, were of various heights, and covered with old tiles; windows were rare, and still more rare, glass and every species of ornament.

But the village contained a grand square, which, in spring, was green as a prairie; on this square was situated a beautiful church: the general aspect was one of charming neatness.

Fourteen crosses, of dimensions equal to that which was near to Stein, were placed equidistant from each other; the last, which was raised in the middle of the square, was opposite to the church: it was the Road of the Cross.

Momo came back, but with a companion, who was old, tall, dry, thin, and stiff as a wax taper. This man was dressed in a coat and pantaloons made of coarse gray cloth; a waistcoat enamelled in faded colors, and embellished with some repairs, real chef-d’œuvres of their kind; a red belt, such as is worn by the peasants; a slouched hat with large rim, ornamented with a cockade which had been red, and which time, the rain, and the sun had colored with the brilliant shades of a watermelon. On each shoulder was a narrow strip of lace, probably destined to secure two much-used epaulets; and then an old sword, suspended from a belt of the same age, completed this ensemble, half military and half rural. Long years had exercised great ravages upon the front part of the long and narrow skull of this being. To supply the natural ornament, he had coaxed towards the forehead the sad remnant of his head of hair, and fixing them there by means of a cord of black silk on the top of his skull, he formed a tuft as gracious as that of a Chinese coxcomb.

“Momo, who is this man?” asked Stein in a low voice.

“The commandant,” the other replied, very simply.

“The commandant of what?” anew asked Stein.