“Let us see,” he continued, “would it suit you to come down with me every afternoon into the Cathedral, to show the Treasury and the other curiosities?  A great many foreigners come who can scarcely make themselves understood when they question me; you will understand them, as you know French and English, and, your brother says, many other languages.  The Cathedral would be a gainer, as it would show these strangers that we have an interpreter at our disposal; you would be doing us a favour and would lose nothing by it.  It is always an amusement to see new faces; and about the recompense ...”

Don Antolin stopped here, scratching his head beneath his skull cap.  He would see what he could screw out of the funds of the Obreria; if just at first nothing could be managed, as the revenues of the Primacy were meagre and at their lowest ebb, no doubt something could be given later on.

He looked anxiously for Gabriel’s answer, who, however, was quite agreeable; when all was said and done he was a guest of the Cathedral and owed it something.  And from that afternoon he went down at the hour of choir to show the foreigners all the treasures of the church.

There was no lack of travellers who showed Don Antolin’s coloured tickets waiting for the time to see the jewels.  Silver Stick could never see a stranger without imagining that he was a lord or a duke, and often felt very much surprised at the shabbiness of their clothing; according to his ideas only the great ones of the earth could give themselves the pleasure of travelling, and he opened wide his incredulous and scandalised eyes when Gabriel told him that many were shoemakers from London or shopkeepers from Paris, who during their holidays treated themselves to a trip through the ancient country of the Moors.

Five canons in their choir surplices advanced up the nave, each one holding a key in his hand; these were the guardians of the treasure.  Each one opened the lock confided to his custody, the door swung heavily, and the chapel, with its antique treasures, was opened.  In large glass cases, like a museum, was displayed the ancient opulence of the Cathedral:  statues of chiselled silver, large globes crowned by graceful little figures all of precious metal, ivory caskets of complicated work, custodias and viriles[1] of gold, enormous gilt dishes, embossed with mythological subjects reviving the joy of paganism in that sordid and dusty corner of the Christian Church, and precious stones spread their varied colours over pectorals, mitres and mantles for the Virgin.  There were diamonds so immense as to make one doubt their being genuine, emeralds the size of pebbles, amethysts, topaz, and pearls—­very many pearls, strewn by the hundreds and thousands on the Virgin’s garments.  The foreigners were amazed at all this wealth and dazzled by the quantity, while Gabriel, who had become accustomed to see it daily, looked at it carelessly.  The Treasury presented a deplorable spectacle of neglect:  the riches had aged with the Cathedral, the diamonds did not flash, the gold seemed tarnished and dusty, the silver was blackened, the pearls were opaque and sick, the smoke from the wax tapers and the damp atmosphere of the church had sadly dulled everything.