After this evening Gabriel avoided the meetings in the cloister, so as to have no more discussions with Silver Stick.  He repented of his audacity, and when he was alone reflected on the danger to which he had exposed himself in expressing his views so freely.  He felt terrified at the possibility of being expelled from the Cathedral to roam the world afresh; he reproached himself, throwing in his own teeth his folly in hurling himself against the prejudices of the past.  What could he hope to effect by changing the thoughts of these poor people?  What weight could the conversion of these few men, stuck like limpets to the stones of the past, have in the emancipation of humanity?

The Cathedral was to Gabriel like a gigantic tumour, which blistered the Spanish epidermis, like scars of its ancient infirmities.  It was not a muscle capable of development, but an abscess which bided its time either to be extirpated, or to disappear of itself through the working of the germs it contained; he had chosen this ruin as his refuge and he ought to be silent, to be prudent so that his ingratitude should not be flung in his face.

Moreover, his brother Esteban, breaking the cold reserve into which he had retired since the arrival of his daughter, counselled prudence.

“His mind seems possessed by the demon, Esteban,” said the priest, “and he explains his views with the most perfect calmness in this holy house, as though he were in one of those infernal clubs which exist in foreign countries.  Where on earth has your brother been to learn such things?  Never have I heard such frightful heresies.  Tell him that I shall forget it all as I have known him since his childhood, and that I remember he was the pride of our seminary, but more especially because he is ill, and it would be inhuman to drive him out of the Cathedral; but he must not repeat this scandal.  Silence!  Let him keep all those atrocities in his own head, if it so pleases him to lose his soul; but in this holy house, and especially before its staff, not a word.  Do you understand? not a word.  The next thing will be that he will hold meetings in the Holy Metropolitan Church.  Besides, your brother must remember that, after all, at this moment, he is eating the bread of the Church, as he lives on you, and is supported by you, and it is not right to speak in this way of the most excellent work of God, and try to point out all its defects.”

This last consideration weighed the most with Gabriel, and it wounded his dignity.  Don Antolin said rightly, he was no more than a parasite of the Cathedral, and having taken refuge in her lap, he owed her gratitude and silence.  He would keep silence.  Had he not decided when he took refuge there to live as one dead?  He would live like an animated corpse, which in some religious orders is the supreme of human perfection.  He would think like everyone else, or rather, he would try not to think at all, but would simply vegetate there till his last hour came, like the plants in the garden or the fungus on the buttresses of the cloister.