Christian fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Historical fiction; New Mexico -- Fiction
DURING those last weeks of the Bishop's life he thought very little
about death; it was the Past he was leaving. The future would take care
of itself. But he had an intellectual curiosity about dying; about the
changes that took place in a man's beliefs and scale of values. More and
more life seemed to him an experience of the Ego, in no sense the Ego
itself. This conviction, he believed, was something apart from his
religious life; it was an enlightenment that came to him as a man, a
human creature. And he noticed that he judged conduct differently now;
his own and that of others. The mistakes of his life seemed unimportant;
accidents that had occurred _en route_, like the shipwreck in Galveston
harbour, or the runaway in which he was hurt when he was first on his
way to New Mexico in search of his Bishopric.
He observed also that there was no longer any perspective in his
memories. He remembered his winters with his cousins on the
Mediterranean when he was a little boy, his student days in the Holy
City, as clearly as he remembered the arrival of M. Molny and the
building of his Cathedral. He was soon to have done with calendared
time, and it had already ceased to count for him. He sat in the middle
of his own consciousness; none of his former states of mind were lost or
outgrown. They were all within reach of his hand, and all
comprehensible.
Sometimes, when Magdalena or Bernard came in and asked him a question,
it took him several seconds to bring himself back to the present. He
could see they thought his mind was failing; but it was only
extraordinarily active in some other part of the great picture of his
life--some part of which they knew nothing.
When the occasion warranted he could return to the present. But there
was not much present left; Father Joseph dead, the Olivares both dead,
Kit Carson dead, only the minor characters of his life remained in
present time. One morning, several weeks after the Bishop came back to
Santa Fé, one of the strong people of the old deep days of life did
appear, not in memory but in the flesh, in the shallow light of the
present; Eusabio the Navajo. Out on the Colorado Chiquito he had heard
the word, passed on from one trading post to another, that the old
Archbishop was failing, and the Indian came to Santa Fé. He, too, was
an old man now. Once again their fine hands clasped. The Bishop brushed
a drop of moisture from his eye.
"I have wished for this meeting, my friend. I had thought of asking you
to come, but it is a long way."
The old Navajo smiled. "Not long now, any more. I come on the cars,
Padre. I get on the cars at Gallup, and the same day I am here. You
remember when we come together once to Santa Fé from my country? How
long it take us? Two weeks, pretty near. Men travel faster now, but I do
not know if they go to better things."
"We must not try to know the future, Eusabio. It is better not. And
Manuelito?"
"Manuelito is well; he still leads his people."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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