Samara’s Reviews > Death Comes for the Archbishop > Status Update

At the moment of the Elevation the dark priest seemed to give his whole force, his swarthy body and all its blood, to that lifting-up. Rightly guided, the Bishop reflected, this Mexican might have been a great man. He had an altogether compelling personality, a disturbing, mysterious, magnetic power.

The wind, he knew, was blowing out of the inky cloud bank that lay behind the mountain at sunset, but it might well be blowing out of a remote, black past [of white men ravishing the Pecos people of their resources, health, and people]. The only human voice raised against it was the feeble wailing of the sick child in the cradle. Clara ate noiselessly in a corner, Jacinto looked into the fire.

At this moment Father Joseph was lying dangerously ill in the dirt and discomfort of a village in winter. Why, the Bishop was asking himself, had he ever brought his friend to this life of hardship and danger?

Whether they were dark and full of violence, or soft and white with luxurious idleness, they powerfully affected the world beneath them. The desert, the mountains and mesas, were continually re-formed and re-coloured by the cloud shadows. The whole country seemed fluid to the eye under this constant change of accent, this ever-varying distribution of light.

He was as much at home in the Bishop's study as in his own Pueblo -- and he was never too much at home anywhere.

Doctrine is well enough for the wise...but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love.