“Oh what an exquisite enjoyment!” said the yawning priest, as he looked on the sleeping beauty without another emotion than that of the delight of an uninterrupted repose.—“Pray, don’t disturb her,” he said, yawning himself out of the room—“after such a night as we all have had, sleep must be a very refreshing and laudable exercise; and so I commend you to the protection of the holy saints!”
“Oh reverend Father!—Oh holy Father!” cried Doña Clara clinging to him, “desert me not in this extremity—this has been the work of magic—of infernal spirits. See how profoundly she sleeps, though we are speaking, and it is now daylight.”
“Daughter, you are much mistaken,” answered the drowsy priest; “people can sleep soundly even in the daytime; and for proof send me, as I am now retiring to rest, a bottle of Foncarral or Valdepenas—not that I value the richest vintage of Spain from the Chacoli of Biscay to the Mataro of Catalonia,62 but I would never have it said that I slept in the daytime, but for sufficient reason.”
“Holy Father!” answered Doña Clara, “do you not think my daughter’s disappearance and intense slumber are the result of preternatural causes?”
“Daughter,” answered the priest, contracting his brows, “let me have some wine to slake the intolerable thirst caused by my anxiety for the welfare of your family, and let me meditate some hours afterwards on the measures best to be adopted, and then—when I awake, I will give you my opinion.”
“Holy Father, you shall judge for me in everything.”
“It were not amiss, daughter,” said the priest retiring, “if a few slices of ham, or some poignant sausages, accompanied the wine—it might, as it were, abate the deleterious effects of that abominable liquor, which I never drink but on emergencies like these.”
“Holy Father, they shall be ordered,” said the anxious mother—“but do you not think my daughter’s sleep is supernatural?”
“Follow me to mine apartment, daughter,” answered the priest, exchanging his cowl for a nightcap, which one of the numerous household obsequiously presented him, “and you will soon see that sleep is a natural effect of a natural cause. Your daughter has doubtless passed a very fatiguing night, and so have you, and so have I, though perhaps from very different causes; but all those causes dispose us to a profound repose.—I have no doubt of mine—fetch up the wine and sausages—I am very weary—Oh I am weak and worn with fasts and watching, and the labours of exhortation. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, and my jaws cling together—perhaps a draught or two might dissolve their parching adhesion. But I do so hate wine—why the devil don’t you fetch up the bottle?”
The attendant domestic, terrified by the tone of wrath in which the last words were uttered, hurried on with submissive expedition, and Fra Jose sat down at length in his apartment to ruminate on the calamities and perplexities of the family, till he was actually overcome by the subject, and exclaimed in a tone of despair, “Both bottles empty! Then it is useless to meditate further on this subject.”
He was roused at an earlier hour than he wished, by a message from Doña Clara, who, in the distress of a weak mind, accustomed always to factitious and external support, now felt as if every step she took without it, must lead to actual and instant perdition. Her fear of her husband, next to her superstitious fears, held the strongest power over her mind, and that morning she called Fra Jose to an early consultation of terror and inquietude.—Her great object was to conceal, if possible, the absence of her daughter on that eventful night; and finding that none of the domestics appeared conscious of it, and that amid the numerous household, only one aged servant was absent, of whose absence no one took notice amid the superfluous multitude of a Spanish establishment, her courage began to revive. It was raised still higher by a letter from Aliaga, announcing the necessity of his visiting a distant part of Spain, and of the marriage of his daughter with Montilla being deferred for some months—this sounded like reprieve in the ears of Doña Clara—she consulted with the priest, who answered in words of comfort, that if Doña Isidora’s short absence were known, it was but a slight evil, and if it were not known, it was none at all—and he recommended to her, to ensure the secrecy of the servants by means that he swore by his habit were infallible, as he had known them operate effectively among the servants of a far more powerful and extensive establishment.
“Reverend Father,” said Doña Clara, “I know of no establishment among the grandees of Spain more splendid than ours.”
“But I do, daughter,” said the priest, “and the head of that establishment is—the Pope;—but go now, and awake your daughter, who deserves to sleep till doomsday, as she seems totally to have forgotten the hour of breakfast. It is not for myself I speak, daughter, but I cannot bear to see the regularity of a magnificent household thus interrupted; for myself, a basin of chocolate, and a cluster of grapes, will be sufficient; and to allay the crudity of the grapes, a glass of Malaga.—Your glasses, by the by, are the shallowest I ever drank out of—could you not find some means to get from Ildefonso63 glasses of the right make, with short shanks and ample bodies? Yours resemble those of Quichotte, all limbs and no trunk. I like one that resembles his squire, a spacious body and a shank that may be measured by my little finger.”
“I will send to St. Ildefonso this day,” answered Doña Clara.
“Go and awake your daughter first,” said the priest.
As he spoke, Isidora entered the room—the mother and the priest both stood amazed. Her countenance was as serene, her
