spotless and immaterial hereafter.
The white facades of Havana, intolerably gold under the sun and
glimmering in the tropical nights, the procession and clamor of the
Dia des Reyes, the crowded theatres, the restaurants where, with no
appetite, he ate as little as possible--began to appear vague,
unsubstantial. What, so intently, was on every hand being done he
thought meaningless. Where, originally, he had been absorbed in
bringing relief to countless specific Cubans, he now only dwelt on a
possible tranquility of souls, a state, like that promised in the
Bible, without corruption and injustice and tears.

* * * * *

These considerations particularly occupied Charles Abbott waiting
inside the door of Santa Clara Church for La Clavel, who was coming to
the eight o'clock morning mass. Outside, the day was still and very
hot, intolerably blazing, but the darkened interior of the church, the
air heavy with incense, was cool. An intermittent stream of people
entered--the white and gilt of a Spanish naval uniform was followed by
gay silks, a priest passed noiselessly, like a shadow; an old woman
with a rippling fire of jewels made her way forward, across the wide
stone floor, with the regular subdued tap of a cane. The impending
celebration of the mass gathered its activity, its white and black
figures, about an altar. Suddenly Charles envied the priests in their
service of an ideal embodied in a spiritual Trinity. Even Cuba
vanished from the foreground of his thoughts at the conception of a
devotion not alone to an island, a nation, but to all the world of
men. His interest, measured with this, was merely temporal, limited.

Compared with the Protestant influences of his birth and experience,
the separation of religion from society, the all-absorbing gesture and
the mysticism of the Roman church offered a complete escape, an
obliteration, of the individual. But, as he dwelt upon this, he
realized that, for him, it was an impossibility. He might be a
Franciscan, begging his way, in brown bagging and sandals, through a
callous world for which he ceaselessly prayed; or one of the heroic
Jesuits of the early French occupation of the Mississippi Valley. Yet
these, as well, were no more than pictures, designs in a kaleidoscope
which, immediately turned, would be destroyed in a fresh pattern. He
was brought back to reality by the swinging of the heavy curtain at
the door; a segment of day, like a