The Shadow of the Cathedral

The dawn was just rising when Gabriel Luna arrived in front of the Cathedral, but in the narrow street of Toledo it was still night. The silvery morning light that had scarcely...

"Thanks, Esteban. I admire your faith, but I did not come out of that dark adventure as well as you imagine. It would have been far better to have died. The aureole of a martyr...

Since the times of the second Cardinal de Bourbon Senior Esteban Luna had been gardener of the Cathedral, by the right that seemed firmly established in his family. Who was the...

There was great excitement both in the Cathedral and in the seminary, everyone discussing from morning till night the news from Madrid, for these were the days of the September...

On leaving the cloister in the mornings soon after daybreak, the first person Gabriel would see was Don Antolin, the "Silver Stick." This priest exercised an authority like that...

The people of the Primacy always received with obstinate silence the slightest allusion to the reigning prelate. It was a traditional custom in the Claverias, and Gabriel rememb...

The sewing machine clicked from early morning till night in the house of the Lunas. This and the hammering of the shoemaker were the only sounds of work that disturbed the holy...

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 reflecte...

On the morning of Corpus the first person Gabriel saw on leaving the cloister was Don Antolin, who was looking over his tickets, placing them in line in front of him on the ston...

He had thought of him all night; it pained him to see him idle, walking about the cloister; it was the want of occupation that inspired him with such perverse ideas.

At nightfall he went down into the cloister, and at the Puerta del Mollete, joined the other watchman, a sickly-looking man who coughed as badly as Luna, and who never left off...