ay he would return and dream. Here one day he could come
when seriously he began to write or paint or take up whatever destiny in
art was in store for him. Here he would forget whatever blow life might
hold in the future. He would send everybody he knew to Seville,
notwithstanding Michael's objection that such generosity would recoil
upon himself in his desire to possess somewhere on earth the opportunity
of oblivion. Maurice and Wedderburn both bought Spanish cloaks and hats
and went with easels to sit beside the Guadalquiver that sun-stained to
the hue of its tawny banks was so contemptuous of their gentlemanly
water-colors, as contemptuous as those cigarette-girls that came
chattering from the tobacco-factory every noon. Michael preferred to
wander over the roofs of the cathedral, until drowsed by the scent of
warm stone he would sit for an hour merely conscious that the city lay
below and that the sky was blue above.

After Seville they traveled to Granada, to Cadiz and Cordova and other
famous cities; and in the train they went slowly through La Mancha where
any windmill might indeed be mistaken for Pentapolin of the Naked Arm,
and where at the stations the water-carriers even in January cried
"agua, agua," so that already the railway-carriages seemed parched by
the fierce summer sun. They traveled to Salamanca and Toledo, and last
of all they went to Burgos where Maurice and Wedderburn strove in vain
to draw corner after corner of the cathedral, in the dust and shadows of
whose more remote chantries Michael heard many Masses. A realization of
the power of faith was stirred in him by these Masses that every day of
every year were said without the recognition of humanity. These
mumblings of ancient priests, these sanctus-bells that rattled like
shaken ribs, these interminable and ceremonious shufflings were the
outward expression of the force that sustained this fabric of Burgos and
had raised in Seville a cathedral that seemed to crush like a stupendous
monster the houses scattered about in its path, insignificant as a heap
of white shells. Half of these old priests, thought Michael, were
probably puppets who did not understand even their own cracked Latinity,
yet their ministrations were almost frightening in their efficacy: they
were indeed the very stones of Burgos made vocal.

Listening to these Masses, Michael began to regret he had allowed all
his interest in religion to peter out in the irritation of compuls