Accident victims -- Fiction; Bridges -- Accidents -- Peru -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Peru -- Fiction
The book being done fell under the eyes of some judges and was suddenly
pronounced heretical. It was ordered to be burned in the Square with its
author. Brother Juniper submitted to the decision that the devil had
made use of him to effect a brilliant campaign in Peru. He sat in his
cell that last night trying to seek in his own life the pattern that had
escaped him in five others. He was not rebellious. He was willing to lay
down his life for the purity of the church, but he longed for one voice
somewhere to testify for him that his intention, at least, had been for
faith; he thought there was no one in the world who believed him. But
the next morning in all that crowd and sunlight there were many who
believed, for he was much loved.
[Illustration]
There was a little delegation from the village of Puerto, and Nina
(Goodness 2, Piety 5, Usefulness 10) and others stood with drawn puzzled
faces while their little friar was given to the congenial flames. Even
then, even then, there remained in his heart an obstinate nerve
insisting that at least St. Francis would not utterly have condemned
him, and (not daring to call upon a greater name, since he seemed so
open to error in these matters) he called twice upon St. Francis I and
leaning upon a flame he smiled and died.
* * * * * * *
The day of the service was clear and warm. The Limeans, their black eyes
wide with awe, poured through the streets into their Cathedral and stood
gazing at the mound of black velvet and silver. The Archbishop enclosed
in his wonderful and almost wooden vestments perspired upon his throne,
lending from time to time a connoisseur's ear to the felicities of
Vittoria's counterpoint. The choir had restudied the pages that, as his
farewell to music, Tomás Luis had composed for his friend and patron,
the Empress of Austria, and all that grief and sweetness, all that
Spanish realism filtering through an Italian mode, rose and fell above
the sea of mantillas. Don. Andrés, under the colours and feathered
hangings of his office, knelt, ill and troubled. He knew that the crowd
was furtively glancing at him, expecting him to play the father who has
lost his only son. He wondered whether the Perichole was present. He had
never been obliged to go so long without smoking. The Captain Alvarado
pushed in from the sunny square for a moment. He looked across the
fields of black hair and lace at the trooping of the candles and the
ropes of incense. "How false, how unreal," he said and pushed his way
out. He descended to the sea and sat on the edge of his boat, gazing
down into the clear water. "Happy are the drowned, Esteban," he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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