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Updated: June 10, 2025
He would cough just as much living in the Claverias as passing the night in the Cathedral. After dinner he would go into the cloister, completely rested by his morning's sleep. It was the only time of the day in which he could see his friends; they either came to find him, or he went in search of them, going to the shoemaker's house or up into the tower.
Through a back window of the room Gabriel could see the inner court, which made this "habitacion" one of the most charming in the Claverias, the open expanse of sky, and the upper rooms on all four sides, supported by rows of slender pillars, that made the courtyard look like a little cloister. Esteban came back and rejoined his brother. "You must say what you would like for breakfast.
They crossed the gallery covered by the archbishop's archway and entered the upper cloister called "the Claverias": four arcades of equal length to those of the lower cloister, but quite bare of decoration, and with a poverty-stricken aspect. The pavement was chipped and broken, the four sides had a balustrade running round between the flat pillars that supported the old beams of the roof.
The women of the Claverias went backwards and forwards with news from the palace to the upper cloister; the children were shut up in the houses, frightened by their mothers' threats if they attempted to play in the galleries. The Chapel-master, who was generally indifferent to events in the Cathedral, went nevertheless to inquire of His Eminence's condition.
"We meet in the tower now," said the bell-ringer; "Silver Stick looks on our meetings with an evil eye, and he has gone so far as to threaten the shoemaker to turn him out of the Claverias if the meetings continue to be held in his house. He will not interfere with me; he knows my character. Besides, if he rules in the upper cloister, I rule in my tower.
The cloister, with its low arcade, looked like a street having houses on one side only; opposite was the flat colonnade with its balustrade, against which the pointed branches of the cypresses in the garden rested. Above the roof of the cloister could be seen the windows of another row of "habitacions," for nearly all the dwellings in the Claverias had two stories.
The young people who live in the Claverias have not our great love for the mother-church; they complain of the shortness of their salaries without considering that it is the temporalities that support religion. If this goes on I should not be surprised to see this popinjay and other rascals like him playing at 'Rayuelo' in the crossways in front of the choir. May God forgive me!"
In truth he was an habitué but he had sacrificed himself in order to talk for a whole afternoon with his sweetheart at the door of her house in the silence of the Claverias. The grandmother had gone down into the garden, and "Virgin's Blue" would not be long in going out and leaving the coast clear, as if the matter in no way concerned him. "The beautiful evening, friend Gabriel!"
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