The Spanish convent is especially doleful. There in the dim light, under misty arches, beneath domes made vague by the shadows, rise altars massive as the Tower of Babel, lofty as cathedrals; there in the gloom huge white crucifixes hang by chains; there stand out naked against the ebony background, huge white Christs of ivory--more than bloody, bleeding; frightful yet grand, the elbows showing the bone, the kneepans showing the ligaments, the wounds showing the flesh; crowned with thorns of silver, nailed with nails of gold, with drops of blood in rubies on the forehead and tears of diamonds in the eyes. The diamonds and rubies look wet, and draw tears from those down below in the gloom,--veiled beings, whose sides are wounded by the hair shirt and by the scourge with iron points, their bosoms crushed by wicker jackets, their knees galled by prayer; women who believe themselves brides, spectres who believe themselves seraphim. Do these women ever think? No. Have they wills? No. Do they love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone, their bones to stone. Their veil is woven of the night. Their breathing under the veil is like some tragic respiration of death. Their abbess, a phantom, hallows them and terrifies them. The Immaculate is there, implacable. Such are the old monasteries of Spain. Retreats of fearful devotion, caves of virgins, savage wildernesses.
Catholic Spain was more Roman than Rome itself. The Spanish convent was pre-eminently the Catholic convent. It had a touch of the East about it. The Archbishop, kislar-agar of heaven, locked up and watched this seraglio of souls reserved for God. The nun was the odalisque, the priest was the eunuch. The devoted were chosen in their dreams, and possessed Christ. By night the beautiful young man descended naked from the cross and became the rapture of the cell. High walls guarded from every living distraction the mystic sultana who had for her sultan the Crucified One. A mere glance outside was an infidelity. The _in pace_ took the place of the leather sack. What they threw into the sea in the East, they threw into the earth in the West. In both places, women's arms were writhing; for these the sea, for those the grave; here the drowned, there the buried. Dreadful analogy!