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Rich rustling hangings, waving on the walls; and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty's dress; the light of women's eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness.
"That I grant, too," said Don Quixote. "Then this fame, these favours, these privileges, or whatever you call it," said Sancho, "belong to the bodies and relics of the saints who, with the approbation and permission of our holy mother Church, have lamps, tapers, winding-sheets, crutches, pictures, eyes and legs, by means of which they increase devotion and add to their own Christian reputation.
Death was coming so fast and threatening, that all the usual preparations were perforce dispensed with. Neither the two lighted tapers, nor the little table covered with white cloth had been provided.
Her devotees carry representations of the Virgin about them, deck her images with flowers, dress them in silks or other costly ornaments, burn tapers before them, kiss and look upon them with a languishing eye, touch them with their chaplets, rub their handkerchiefs upon them, and salute them with the profoundest veneration.
It is respecting what are called corpse-candles, little wandering fires, of a pale bluish light, that move about like tapers in the open air, and are supposed to designate the way some corpse is to go. One was seen at Lanyler, late at night, hovering up and down, along the bank of the Istwith, and was watched by the neighbours until they were tired, and went to bed.
At that early hour the masses of entreaty had already been said at several altars, under the grey light falling from the high and narrow windows, and the tapers of entreaty were burning in the depths of the apse. So Pierre made haste to go to the sacristy, there to assume his vestments in order that he might say his mass in the chapel of St. Vincent de Paul.
Gladly, then, did I turn to follow the Duke and Madonna Paola into the adjoining chamber to which Cesare led the way, even as Don Miguel's voice was raised to command his men to clear the hall, to the end that he might conduct his examination in private. The three of us stood in the anteroom. A servant had lighted the tapers and closed the doors, and the Duke turned to me.
For quite certainly, in God's providence, the tools do come to the hand that can wield them, and the best reward that we can get for doing well our little work is to have larger work to do. The little tapers are tempted, if I may use so incongruous a figure, to wish themselves set up on loftier stands. Shine your brightest in your corner, and you will be 'exalted' in due time.
The passages and niches of the tomb seem to have been hewn and hollowed out of the rock, not built by any art of masonry; but the walls were very dark, almost black, and our tapers so dim that I could not gain a sufficient breadth of view to ascertain what kind of place it was. It was very dark, indeed; the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky could not be darker.
I fancied myself in a huge cathedral, without light, except from four tapers that stood at the corners of a raised platform hung with black, on which lay, draped also in black, what seemed to me the dead body of the Countess de St. Alyre. The little I saw bore the character of Gothic gloom, and helped my fancy to shape and furnish the black void that yawned all round me.
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