Read Online Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather - Free Book Online Page A

never referred to his mother or her house or the people who came there, when he was with Cécile and her father. When
he went to see them, he left his little past behind him, as it were.
    At last the fall of water on the roof grew fainter, and the light clearer. Cécile said she must be going home now. “Come
along with me, Jacques. Never mind about your clothes,” seeing that he hung back, “that will be all right. Perhaps my father
will give you a bath while I am getting our déjeuner, and we will all have our chocolate together.”
    As they quitted their bench, someone entered the church; a very heavy, tall old man with wide, stooping shoulders and a
head hanging forward. When he took off his shovel hat at the door, a black skull-cap still remained over his scanty locks.
He carried a cane and seemed to move his legs with some difficulty under his long, black gown. It was old Bishop Laval
himself, who had been storm-bound for an hour and more at the house of one of the merchants on the square. Cécile hurried up
to him before he should have time to kneel.
    “Excuse me, Monseigneur l’Ancien,” she said respectfully, “but if it is quite convenient would you be so kind as to lend
me twenty sous?”
    The old man looked down at her, frowning. His eyes were large and full, but set deep back under his forehead. He had such
a very large, drooping nose, and such a grim, bitter mouth, that he might well have frightened a child who didn’t know him.
With considerable difficulty he got a little black purse out from under his gown. There was not much in it.
    “You see,” Cécile explained, “the little boy and I wished to offer candles, and I had no money with me. I was going up to
my father’s shop to get some, but I would rather not leave the church owing for the candles.”
    The old man nodded and looked slightly amused. He put two pieces in her hand, and she went to the front of the church to
slip them in the box, leaving Jacques, who had got back against the wall as far as he could go, to bear the scrutiny of the
Bishop’s smouldering eyes. When she came back, she found them regarding each other in silence, but very intently; the old
man staring down from his height, the little boy, his finger in his mouth, looking up at the Bishop shyly, but in a way that
struck her as very personal. Cécile took him by the hand and led him to the door. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw
the Bishop sink heavily to his knees with something between a sigh and a groan.
    Everything was glittering when they stepped out into the square; no sun yet, but a bright rain-grey light, silver and cut
steel and pearl on the grey roofs and walls. Long veils of smoky fog were caught in the pine forests across the river. And
how fresh the air smelled!
    “Jacques,” Cécile asked wonderingly, “do you know Monseigneur Laval? Did he ever talk to you?”
    “I think once he did.”
    “What about?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    They went hand in hand up the hill.
    He both did and did not remember; it came back to him in flashes, unrelated pictures, like a dream. Perhaps it was a
dream. He could never have told Cécile about it, since it was hard for him to talk even about things he knew very well. But
whenever he chanced to see old Bishop Laval, he felt that once, long ago, something pleasant had happened between them.
    It had happened two years ago, when he was only four, before he knew the Auclairs at all. It was in January. A light,
sticky snow had fallen irresolutely, at intervals, all day. Toward evening the weather changed; the sun emerged, just
sinking over the great pine forest to the west, hung there, an angry ball, and all the snow-covered rock blazed in orange
fire. The sun became a half-circle, then a mere red eyebrow, then dropped behind the forest, leaving the air clear blue, and
much colder, with a pale lemon moon riding high overhead. There was no wind, it was a night of still moonlight, and within
an hour after sunset the wet