Note (12) — Chapter XXXIV

“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 Donna 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 day-light.”—“Daughter, you are much mistaken,” answered the drowsy priest; “people can sleep soundly even in the day-time; 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,(12) but I would never have it said that I slept in the day-time, but for sufficient reason.”——“Holy Father!” answered Donna 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 every thing.”—“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 night-cap, 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?”