So it went on, day after day. And now, if truth were known, he had prepared himself in advance to guard against any wiles which might be designed toward his conversion: but no one was trying to convert him at all. The meals were excellent, and this room, this bed. . but no one seemed faintly concerned with his "spiritual side" as he called it in his fellow man: no one, in fact, even seemed to notice that he had one, however diffidently he approached. They treated him with the same gentle formality, from the same courteous distance of gracious condescension, that he had come prepared to treat them with.
He stood still at the window, staring through his own faint image in the glass. It is true, he did enjoy novel burning twinges on odd parts of his body at night in that bed, which might be a manifestation of some sort, though he suspected the coffee (for he did of course abstain from wine at table). In the same bed, he had developed a sort of dream, though it seemed he was but half asleep when it occurred to him: he was walking somewhere unremarkable when suddenly he tripped, or almost put a foot off something, or into something, and drew his foot back with a violent start, which woke him. That was all. And that too might be the coffee, for he did not smoke.
If he had, he would certainly have lit a cigarette now, as the sight of a soiled limousine parked up the street and almost filling it, clouded his face with the memory of the girls from the American Embassy in Madrid who had rolled up the day before. They got quite a kick out of the place, they said, and offered him American cigarettes which they were going to give to the Embassy chauffeur anyhow, if no one else wanted them. They left right after lunch, but their chatter and blank interchangeable images stayed behind well after dinner. — Well why are you in Spain?… if you don't especially like it? the distinguished novelist asked, once recognized and trapped. — A job's a job. — And you wish you were back in the States? — That's all we ever talk about, going home, but a job's a job.
His eyes followed the only moving thing in sight now, the slight unsteady figure of a man who had come out of the bar across the plaza, and was approaching the walls. He moved with uncertainties in his gait, hesitations before mud puddles as though unsure which way to take round them, though at that he often did not stop until he'd already got a foot into the water. There was none of the swaying vacillation of drunkenness, but a nervous combination of insistence and uncertainty.
Then the plaza was still, and he raised his eyes to the profiles of the mountains where the clouds had lifted, exposing the same gray sky at the horizon as the one stretched above. The distinguished novelist turned resolutely back to his writing table, sat down, sniffed, and wrote, "High in the brilliant sunshine of the Sierra de G—, weary and footsore after climbing the bridle path from the peaceful which wends- wending its way ever upward from the peaceful valley town of Logrosán (?) into the forbidding landscape of Estremadura. ." A knock sounded at the door, and — Se puede? in a hoarse whisper.
— Fra Elãlio?… he gasped.
The door came open enough to permit the old woman to show herself pointing down her throat with her thumb, as though there were something lodged there. — Cafe, she whispered, sounding as though there were, and disappeared hack into the dim tortuous passage leading to his apartment. He got up, put on a black necktie, let the ends of his mouth, and his eyes, sink, and set out. But in the door he stopped to look back, as though afraid of missing something. He had, after all, been here, waiting, for three days.
— Oh my God!…
— Whmmp?
— She wet on that. . whatever you call it. Bad doggie! Bad sacrilegious doggie!. .
— This would make a nice place to throw a party, said the tall woman's husband, pausing to look round him, as the poodle strained in the harnesses encumbering it at both ends, and pulled her toward the boxwood hedge.
— Parties, my God!. . don't start that. What did we come all the way over here for? I hope I never see another party. She jerked the dog away from a gothic column, and added, — All you've been talking about is drinking ever since we landed.
— Well all you've talked about is eating.
— I have not, I'm dieting and you know it. What else can you do in this country but diet?
— Well, when you don't talk about eating, you talk about not eating. It's just as bad. He stood gazing round the gothic arches of the cloister. — Anyway, he murmured, — the food's usually better in these places than in a lot of the hotels.
— I still don't see why you wanted to get here at the crack of dawn.
— You would if you were paying for the car. And there wasn't any dawn, as far as that goes. Look at it. It might as well be… cocktail time.
— See?. . there you go. They ambled on in silence, until she pointed with a scarlet-tipped finger, — Look at those old chains hanging up there, they save anything they can get their hands on. And look!. .
— What?
— That man, isn't it… in the tweed suit, did you see him? I know I've seen his picture on book jackets.
— Yes, him. I saw him. Might have known you'd find him hanging around a place like this.
— I've heard things about him, that he was… Is he?
— What.
— That way?
— I don't know. He hasn't touched a woman since his third wife left him.
— He's gone, I guess he didn't see us. What do you think he's doing here? I've heard things about life in monasteries.
— He hasn't got that much imagination. He's probably writing another book.
— He's written fifty of them. If he had anything to say you'd think he would have said it by now. Why do they keep publishing them?
— Because he keeps writing them. And it costs a publisher more to lay off than it does to keep his presses running, so they feed anything in. A morose note of reminiscence had crept into his voice.
— Now come on, the tall woman said, taking his arm in five scarlet nails, — we're going to forget all about all that. She looked round for something to comment on, and her eyes fell on the dog. — Don't you think she should wear her belt when she comes into a monastery?
He laughed, or moaned, it was difficult to tell.
— Just the same, I saw a bad goat out in the street give Huki-Iau a very suggestive look.
But her husband was not beside her. He had stopped to gaze back on the cloister.
— What are you thinking about now, turning into a monk, for God's sake?
He turned to follow her obediently, and mumbled when he reached her side, — Oh sure. A monk. I'd just as soon be dead.
But the man in Irish thorn-proof certainly had seen them and, for perhaps the first time in his adult life, he did not want to be recognized. He backed away from the colonnade, along the wall until he reached a door, and he backed through that. He went through a gallery, out into another court, was almost run down by a perambulating figure in the ubiquitous brown robe busy with the breviary, caught a hand in the swinging tassel and almost went over in a reeling attempt to avoid mashing the bare toes protruding from the sandal, grated out the first words of an apology and was silenced by a sweet and gelid smile, narrowly escaped falling backwards into the Moorish fountain, tucked in his black necktie and at last, coming sideways through the door, found himself entering the sacristía at one end as a man, the same he had seen making his unsteady way across the plaza earlier, disappeared from the other carrying something large and unwieldy under one arm. The distinguished novelist was, by now, not only breathless but excited to a considerably alert degree, and it took no more than a glance at the wall lor a square unladed expanse to assure him that a painting was missing. Whether it was the desperate hope of managing some measure of atonement for the collision of a moment before, or the sudden opportunity to repay the complacent hospitality shown him here, or just the chance to get into things, he did not stop to consider, but rushed the length of the room trying to get enough breath to cry out. Now although he had seen the man clearly, even clearly enough to be able to swear that he had screwed his already knotted-up face into a leer as he escaped, upon arrival at the far end of the sacristía the pursuer did not know which of the two doors he'd gone out. He did not stop to consider that either, but pulled open the first door to hand, summoning enough breath to call, — What are you doing there!. . into the depths of the church. Whether his cry was heard over the Te Deum, he did not stop to consider, but got that door closed as fast as he could, and the other open. The stone passage was almost dark, but a bulb glowed at the far end, and he hurried toward that, bringing forth, with what breath he could spare, — Where are you going with that! Who are you?!