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Updated: June 8, 2025
All those men, accustomed to the slow, regular, quiet duties of the church, with long periods of rest, admired the nervous activity of Sagrario. "You will kill yourself, child," said the old organ-blower.
Sagrario leant on Gabriel as though her strength were failing, and as if terrified at so much happiness, she wished to take refuge in his arms. "Why have I known you so late!" she said in a low voice. "I should have wished to love you in my youth, to be beautiful and healthy only for you, to have the beauty and charm of a great lady to soften the rest of your life.
"And the governments, the laws, and the customs of society?" inquired the bell-ringer. "Nothing. Nothing." Sagrario fixed her eyes, grown larger by her earnest contemplation of the heavens, on her uncle. "And God," she asked in a soft voice; "where is God?" Gabriel stood up, leaning on the balustrade of the gallery; his figure stood out dark and clear against the starry space.
He passed his arm round the woman, raising her head with his other hand, fixing his eyes on those of Sagrario, which were shining in the starlight bright with tears. "We shall be two souls, two minds who cherish one another without giving rein to passion, and with a purity such as no poets have imagined.
Nothing seemed changed in that little world under the shadow of the Cathedral. She only, who had left it in the bloom of her youth, now returned aged and broken. There was a long silence between the three people. "Your room, Sagrario," said Gabriel at last gently, "is the same as when you left it. Go in and do not come out till I call you. Be calm and do not cry; trust me.
"But uncle," said Sagrario, gently, touched by his recital, "I cannot do what she did. I am an unhappy woman, without strength or will." "Call me Gabriel," said Luna, vehemently. "You are my Lucy, who again crosses my path; I knew it from the first, and for a long while I have been searching my feelings, analysing my will, and I have arrived at one certainty that I love you, Sagrario."
"She was like all you women of the lower orders, Sagrario. Your beauty only lasts an instant; in fact, it can only exist in the first flush of youth. A woman of the poor cannot be beautiful unless she gets out of her class. Daily labour makes her lose all her freshness and strength, and maternity in the midst of poverty absorbs even the marrow in her bones.
Gabriel, looking at his companion, felt the gentle selfishness that a living man feels when a great man dies. "So the great fall, Sagrario, and we, the sickly and wretched, have still some life before us." At the hour of locking up the church he went down to begin his watch. The bell-ringer was waiting for him with the keys. "How about the Cardinal?" inquired Gabriel.
Gabriel stood erect sustaining Sagrario, who seemed almost fainting from the strength of her feelings; he looked up at the luminous space with almost priestly gravity, and said, whispering close to the young woman's ear: "Our life will be like a deserted garden, where amid fallen trunks and dead branches fresh foliage springs up. Companion, let us love one another.
Luna recognised him also: it was Eusebio, the sacristan of the chapel of the Sagrario, "Azul de la Virgen," as he was called by the Cathedral staff, on account of the celestial colour of the cloak he wore on festival days.
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