DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP
chip of yellow rock that lay in his palm. As he had a very special way of handling objects that were sacred, he extended that manner to things which he considered beautiful. After a moment of silence he looked up at the rugged wall, gleaming gold above them. “That hill, Blanchet, is my Cathedral.”
Father Joseph looked at his Bishop, then at the cliff, blinking. “Vraiment? Is the stone hard enough? A good colour, certainly; something like the colonnade of St. Peter’s.”
The Bishop smoothed the piece of rock with his thumb. “It is more like something nearer home—I mean, nearer Clermont. When I look up at this rock I can almost feel the Rhone behind me.”
“Ah, you mean the old Palace of the Popes, at Avignon! Yes, you are right, it is very like. At this hour, it is like this.”
The Bishop sat down on a boulder, still looking up at the cliff. “It is the stone I have always wanted, and I found it quite by chance. I was coming back from Isleta. I had been to see old Padre Jesus when he was dying. I had never come by this trail, but when I reached Santo Domingo I found the road so washed by a heavy rain that I turned out and decided to try this way home. I rode up here from the west in the late afternoon; this hill confronted me as it confronts us now, and I knew instantly that it was my Cathedral.”
242
