“It is true, lad.  I am glad you were here to remind me; let us be going.”

Then he added, speaking to the musical priest: 

“Don Luis, your mass is at eight o’clock.  You can talk with Gabriel later on; now we must fulfil our obligations, for those who are late will, as you say, be turned out, even though our office hardly gives us enough to eat.”

The Chapel-master assented sadly with a movement of his head, and went out, following the two Cathedral servants.  He seemed to go unwillingly, as though forced to a task that was to him both irksome and painful.  He hummed absently while giving his hand to Gabriel, who thought he recognised a fragment of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in the low and uneven tones that came from the lips of the young priest.

Now that he was alone Luna stretched himself on the sofa, giving himself up to the fatigue he felt from his long wait before the Cathedral.  His brother’s old servant placed a little pitcher of milk by his side, and filling a cup, Gabriel drank, endeavouring to overcome the repugnance of his weak stomach, which almost refused to retain the liquid.  His body, fatigued by his restless night and the long morning wait, at last assimilated the nourishment, and a soft, dreamy languor spread over him that he had not felt for a long time.  He soon fell asleep, remaining for more than an hour motionless on the sofa, and though his breathing was disturbed, and his chest racked by his hollow cough, they were unable to wake him from his slumber.

When he did awake, it was suddenly, with a nervous start that shook him from head to foot, making him bound from the sofa as though a spring had been touched.  It was the wariness produced by his ever present danger, that had become habitual to him; the habit of restlessness formed in dark dungeons, expecting hourly to see the door open, to be beaten like a dog, or led off between a double file of muskets to the square of execution; the habit of living perpetually watched, of feeling in every country the espionage of the police around him, the habit of being awoke in the middle of the night in his wretched room in some inn by the order to leave at once; the unrest of the ancient Asheverus, who, as soon as he could enjoy a moment’s rest, heard the eternal cry—­“Go on.  Go on.”

He did not try to sleep again, he preferred the present reality, the silence of the Cathedral which was to him as a gentle caress, the noble calm of the temple, that immense pile of worked stone, which seemed to press on him, enveloping him, hiding for ever his weakness and his persecutions.

He went out into the cloister, and, resting his elbows on the balustrade, looked down into the garden.